Hollow One
by Solita
Summary: He was a hollow one, alone now and left with a life in hell. (My final story on fanfiction.net)


> > > * * *
>>> 
>>> **Addendum: 1970**  
  
_Eleven years later. Numbers have dehumanized us. Over breakfast coffee we read of 40,000 American dead in Vietnam. Instead of vomiting, we reach for the toast. Our morning rush through crowded streets is not to cry murder but to hit that trough before somebody else gobbles our share.  
  
An equation: 40,000 dead young men = 3,000 tons of bone and flesh, 124,000 pounds of brain matter, 50,000 gallons of blood, 1,840,000 years of life that will never be lived, 100,000 children who will never be born. (The last we can afford: there are too many starving children in the world already.)  
  
Do we scream in the night when it touches our dreams? No. We don't dream about it because we don't think about it; we don't think about it because we don't care about it. We are much more interested in law and order, so that American streets may be made safe while we transform those of Vietnam into flowing sewers of blood which we replenish each year by forcing our sons to choose between a prison cell here or a coffin there. "Every time I look at the flag, my eyes fill with tears." Mine too.  
  
If the dead mean nothing to us (except on Memorial Day weekend when the national freeway is clotted with surfers, swimmers, skiers, picnickers, campers, hunters, fishers, footballers, beer-busters), what of our 300,000 wounded? Does anyone know where they are? How they feel? How many arms, legs, ears, noses, mouths, faces, penises they've lost? How many are deaf or dumb or blind or all three? How many are single or double or triple or quadruple amputees? How many will remain immobile for the rest of their days? How many hang on as decerebrated vegetables quietly breathing their lives away in small, dark, secret rooms?  
  
Write the Army, the Air Force, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Army and Navy Hospitals, the Director of Medical Sciences at the National Library of Medicine, the Veterans Administration, the Office of the Surgeon General -- and be surprised by what you don't learn. One agency reports 726 admissions "for amputation services" since January, 1965. Another reports 3,011 amputees since the beginning of the fiscal year 1968. The rest is silence.  
  
The Annual Report of the Surgeon General: Medical Statistics of the United States Army ceased publication in 1954. The Library of Congress reports that the Army Office of the Surgeon General for Medical Statistics "does not have figures on single or multiple amputees." Either the government doesn't think them important or, in the words of a researcher for one of the national television networks, "the military itself, while sure of how many tons of bombs it has dropped, is unsure of how many legs and arms its men have lost."  
  
If there are no concrete figures, at least we are beginning to get comparative ones. Proportionately, Vietnam has given us eight times as many paralytics as World War II, three times as many totally disabled, 35% more amputees. Senator Cranston of California concludes that out of every hundred army veterans receiving compensation for wounds received in action in Vietnam, 12.4% are totally disabled. Totally.  
  
But exactly how many hundreds or thousands of the dead-while-living does **that** give us? We don't know. We don't ask. We turn away from them; we avert the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, face. "Why should I look, it wasn't my fault, was it?" It was, of course, but no matter. Time presses. Death waits even for us. We have a dream to pursue, the whitest white hope of them all, and we must follow and find it before the light fails.  
  
So long, losers. God bless. Take care. We'll be seeing you._  
  
- Dalton Trumbo  
January 3rd, 1970
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> _What's left inside him?  
Don't he remember us?  
Can't he believe me?  
We seemed like brothers...  
  
Talked for hours last month  
About what we wanna be  
I sit now with his hand in mine  
But I know he can't feel...  
  
No one knows  
What's done is done  
It's as if he were dead.  
  
I'm close with his mother  
And she cries endlessly.  
Lord, how we miss him!  
At least what's remembered.  
It's so important to make best friends in life,  
But it's hard when my friend sits with blank expressions.  
  
No one knows  
What's done is done  
It's as if he were dead.  
  
He as hollow as I alone now  
He as hollow as I alone now  
He as hollow as I alone now  
He as hollow as I alone...  
  
He as hollow as I alone!  
A shell of my friend,  
Just flesh and bone!  
There's no soul!  
He sees no love!  
I shake my fists at skies above!  
Mad!  
At God!  
Mad... !  
  
He as hollow as I converse!  
I wish he'd waken from this curse!  
Hear my words before it's through,  
I want to come in after you!  
My   
Best friend!  
My  
Best friend!  
Come back!  
  
He as hollow as I alone...  
He as hollow as I alone...  
_  
  
"Hollow" - Pantera.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> ...  
  
A...  
  
L-light?  
  
A light.  
  
Light entering, light all-encompassing, a glorious, welcoming light, engulfing all, illustrating such beauty and hope and faith and everything. Absolutely everything.  
  
No darkness, no helplessness, no abyss trying to seduce a mind into eternal insanity. Nothing of the like, nothing at all but this light. Content, happy, joy, love, life.  
  
A life. A light. A light of life.  
  
The seasons changed in front of his window. Light green colors faded into the dark richness, gaining their life, their full life. The sun encompassed all and the temperature began to rise. Children would flee happily from their learning prisons, smiling and laughing and running far, far away into the waiting hands of freedom.  
  
Spring changed into summer, and a smile attempted to form on his face.  
  
Festering and rotting like a corpse waiting to be buried, sealed away from the world like man unfit for society, his eyes opened, and focused on the light. A substance grew within, yet he couldn't found an ounce of strength to push it all out, striving to feel every ounce of fluid drip down his cheeks and splash to the floor. Nothing came. Nothing would.  
  
He couldn't remember anything, not even telling if all of this, what he saw, was true or dream. He felt way deep down inside to scream, but this silence -- mind-numbing, all-controlling silence -- stopped him from doing so. He could not do anything about it.  
  
He felt a war going on through his body, but it slowly stopped, languidly slowed itself until there were no more soldiers to kill and the generals had to retreat their empty armies and draft more blind, innocent men into the fray.  
  
He was waking up, he could feel it. Like waking up from a dream or a nightmare -- a figment of his imagination, a fabrication of his psychosis. He woke up, and the light guided him to life, a light, a life, a li--  
  
He couldn't see.  
  
There was no light anymore.  
  
Darkness.  
  
Imprisoning him.  
  
All that he saw... the seasons, the light, the hop-- absolute horror. Nothing but that darkness, nothing but that agony, that pain, that...   
  
All that he saw, absolute horror.  
  
Oh God.  
  
No life, no light.  
  
Cannot live.  
  
Cannot die.  
  
Trapped in himself.  
  
Body his holding cell.  
  
Something took it all, and he could not remember the reason. Why was he here? What had occurred? The seasons changed, and he couldn't remember the reason why.   
  
Reason reason reason. Where was the reason?  
  
Someone had to help him remember. Someone tell him why he was here. Why was he here? Why wasn't he out there, in the world, watching the spring fall into summer? Why was he locked away from his happiness, his paradise, like some caged animal?  
  
He wasn't an animal. He was a human being. A living human being. He wanted to run and play and go outside and be with his children.  
  
Oh God, his children.  
  
His daughters.  
  
Did they know he was here? When were they gonna visit him? Would they visit him? Are they gonna visit him? Why would they visit him?  
  
He just wanted to live and be with his daughters. That's all he wanted. That's all he ever wanted in life. He loved them so much like he loved the light, the only beacon of hope through the darkness.  
  
He needed an answer. He needed someone to help him. He didn't know who.  
  
Something took it all away, everything, and he couldn't remember what it was. It drove him to the point of insanity, or somewhere-- a place where it was all obscure and unreal, surreal even, ethereal and unkind and time stopped in its place and he looked around and he saw the world and he couldn't find a way to get back.  
  
It took it all.  
  
Sight.  
  
Speech.  
  
Hearing.  
  
Arms.  
  
Legs.  
  
Soul.  
  
Left with... with what?  
  
Left with a...   
  
No.  
  
No...  
  
NoNO**NO!**  
  
Someone, anyone, help...  
  
Help, wake, hel-- get ou--   
  
He--  
  
The seasons changed -- spring into summer -- as the orange-old sun rose in the distance, it's welcoming light pouring onto the dew-covered ground and leaf-stained pavement. Sparkles and shimmers echoed throughout the area as the sky turned from pinks and golds and purples to a bright, beautiful sky blue.  
  
His eyes never blinked.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> Hazel eyes searched around. "I need someone to check this guy's pulse!"  
  
Frantic shake of the head, brown hair plastered to a blanched face. "Heart's speeding up!"  
  
Eyes widened, and a gasp. "By how much?"  
  
A bite of the lower lip, and another pair of eyes gaze at a monitor. "Jumped around six or something--"  
  
"Shit! We gotta get him to the hospital now!"  
  
Hands flailing all about. "We're losing him! Pulse is getting quicker!"  
  
Another voice. "Fever's going' high!"  
  
A shriek. "He's coughing up blood! There's internal bleeding!"  
  
"Shit shit SHIT!" Their bodies moved and slammed against the sides as the ambulance raced down the highway, speeding towards the hospital. Frail, tired hands ran through drenched hair. "Fuck... someone put some ice on him, quick!! He's burning up!"  
  
"But we have none!"  
  
"WHAT?!" The heart-rate rapidly changed. "Oh shit, it ain't stopping! Nothing is!"  
  
A soft question. "What can we do now?"  
  
"FUCK! I don't know what else we can do!" A long, long sigh. "This keeps up and the guy's gonna die, plain and simple."  
  
Ice blue eyes screamed silently.  
  
A screeching stop, driving them all forwards, forcing their hands to pound on the side of the abulence, bracing themselves. Double doors slammed open, wheeling the stretcher out onto the pavement, driving the comatose man into the hospital.  
  
One person stayed behind, his ice blue eyes helplessly looking forward in a blank stare, lost in his state of shock and fear. What was going to happen? Why did it happen? If he died... if... if he died...  
  
He wouldn't die. He couldn't die. That was absurd. That couldn't ever happen, now could it? It couldn't. No, it wouldn't. No no no no no...  
  
Eddie was stronger than this. Chris knew. He just knew.  
  
A soft hand rested on his shoulder.   
  
"Hey," the driver said, "we're here."  
  
Chris blinked. "Oh." He gulped, wetting his lips. "Thank you."  
  
The driver eyed him peculiarly, squeezing his grip on Chris' shoulder. "You okay?"  
  
He bit up and down, moving his tongue all around, a sudden lump caught in his throat, a blurriness overcoming his vision, and gravity fell upon his shoulders hard. "I... think so," he muttered.   
  
The man didn't release his grip. "You sure?" he whispered warily.  
  
Chris blinked and rose from his seat, feeling the hand fall from his shoulder, the pressure gone. "I hope so."  
  
The driver watched as Chris Benoit stumbled out of the ambulance, and staggered into the hospital, the haunting blank expression still on his face. His tousled brown hair stuck up in various places, his shirt completely wrinkled, his pants torn and stained slightly. Sweat and tears dripped down his fingers and face, splashing on the hot cement.  
  
He looked on and sadly shook his head.   
  
"God help him, the poor son of a bitch," he muttered.  
  
He turned and sat in his chair of the ambulance. As he opened up a cold one, a lazy smile filtered over his lips, the sun blazing in the cloudless sky above. Summer days settled in, hazing over and rising the temperature, and the man smiled gently as birds flew over the trees.  
  
A thought of concern washed over him, but he dismissed it instantly, diverting his attention towards the article about the latest media scandals in the world today.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> _How is he doing? What do you mean he's still like before? Will he ever remember us? Will he wake up? When will he wake up? Why are you on this hopeless crusade? Give up give up give u--_  
  
It's so hard.  
  
I can't stand it, but I am. I want to leave this world, but I can't. It's too real. It's all real. Sometimes I look out the window, the summer days whistling by, the times and moments unspent and worthless -- unable to be with my children -- and I think, "Why the hell are you even here in the first place?"  
  
I shouldn't be here. That's what everyone else said. They told me to give up.  
  
But you know me.  
  
It's so hard... it's beyond anything I have ever gone through in my entire life. It's almost impossible to stand it, stand myself, just to merely sit here, watching you fade away, seeing you die and wither like the fall of crumbling leaves outside a window. The heat sizzles and melts in the air. I can't believe this is happening, but when I see you on the bed, alone, numb, cold...  
  
I touch you, and I shiver. It's real. It's all real.  
  
It's a taste of reality, the splash of water to wake a dreamer up, to face the consequences, to endure the hardship. The feel of your skin jolts through my system like electricity, shocking my heart and rippling through my veins and bulging my eyes and feeling my body stiffen, like I was strapped to the electric chair and screaming inside my head, "This can't be happening to me."  
  
It's all crashing before my eyes, strapped into this leather-bound chair, and it's time to die, time to watch you die. But I know that you aren't gonna die. You're too strong for death.  
  
At the edge of your bed, you merely appear like you're sleeping, like sooner or later you're gonna wake up, and this nightmare will finally be over. You'll wake up, give me your little smile and greet me in your little accent. And all of this will go away, everything will fade...  
  
I'll be happy again. So will everyone else... but...  
  
I don't know when you're gonna wake up. I hope you do. I'm just tired of sitting here, near to you, holding your hand, squeezing it, whispering to you that I'm here, that I've always been here, that you've got me and all you have to do is wake up and make the world suddenly become brighter... and you never respond.  
  
You sleep in that bed, covered in white, with the summer blazing brightly outside your window, and you... you don't do anything. Nothing. Lifeless, emotionless, unresponsive. You don't notice me. You never do.  
  
And I refuse to believe that you never will.  
  
I'd just wish you'd waken from this curse.  
  
Why can't you see me? Hear me? Feel me? See me? I touch you, but you can't feel me. I speak to you, but you don't respond. I cater to you, but you never will say "thank you." You can't. I know you can't. What happened? I want to know, dear God I want to know, but you can't tell me, can you?  
  
Hear my words before it's through! Hear me please. I can't stand this anymore. Time's gone by so fast, too fast, and I don't know how much I can take. Tell me what happened. What was going with you? What went wrong? Why did you...   
  
You merely sleep, locked deep inside your own world, ignoring the one revolving worriedly, lovingly, faithfully around you, and I don't even think you know that. A doll... that's what you are. An emotionless porcelain doll lying in its silk sheets, breakable, fragile, weak. So weak.   
  
It's as if you are dead. But you aren't.  
  
I'll stay here, Eddie. I'll stay here as long as I can. I'll stay with you, and be with you, every step of the way. That's what friends are for. That's why I'm here. I believe, Eddie, I believe that you're gonna make it.   
  
Just like how we were the best in Japan and in WCW. You made it. Just like your addiction. You got over that. Just like how you won the title. You achieve it.   
  
I'll stay with you, Eddie.  
  
But I don't know how long my sanity will stay with me.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "You need your rest."  
  
Chris Benoit didn't bother to look behind him. As his ice blue eyes shut tightly, his tired, worn hand tightened around Eddie's, receiving no response as usual.  
  
"I don't need any rest."  
  
A swift pause. "How long are you going to be here?"  
  
He laughed heartily, feeling his back slowly wearing out on him. He sucked it in, though. Chris knew he was stronger than a little sore back pain, just like Eddie was stronger than this.  
  
"As long as I can," he responded.  
  
The other man staring a hole behind his head, but Chris didn't bother looking back. He kept his focus on Eddie, and only Eddie. He ignored everything else.  
  
A sigh echoed throughout the room, and it rippled on the walls. "I'm sorry," he breathed aloud.  
  
"Don't be," Chris muttered, biting his inner cheek. "You're not the one who destroyed Eddie." An ironic smile played against his lips. "Just like I'm not the one who destroyed--"  
  
"I know," Mick cut off, his voice stern and cold. "I know."  
  
Mick walked away from the room. Chris paid no attention.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "So how are you holding up?"  
  
Mocha brown eyes stare ahead, piercing into steel blue ones. "What do you think?"  
  
A soft chuckle emerges from a deep, sullen voice. "Yeah, stupid question, huh?" A pink tongue rolls over chapped lips, eyes searching for a way to kill the evident silence. "How long have you been here?"  
  
Shrugging shoulders move languidly, easily yet heavy with an unspeakable burden on them. "Months, now."  
  
"Whew," Dean breathed out, eyebrow raising and mouth forming an "o." A sympathetic smile played and tugged against his lips, leaning back against the wall of the hospital's hallway. "I've only been here for about six or seven at max."  
  
"Yeah, Chris has been here since the beginning," Dwayne commented, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans, leaning back as well. "Or so Mick has told me."  
  
Dean nodded in affirmation, eyes wandering to the floor. His eyes swirled in emotions, holding them back as tightly as he could. "Yeah."  
  
A smug smirk appeared on Dwayne's lips. "Your guilty too, huh?"  
  
Daggers flew towards Dwayne within his cold steel blue eyes, snorting loudly. "Nothing to be proud of, Rocky."  
  
He lost the smirk quickly. "I'm not proud."  
  
"You sure are acting like it," Dean snapped, turning his head away from the current and highly acclaimed actor.  
  
Dwayne kept his anger in check, biting his lower lip to keep himself from screaming at the other man. "I was just trying to relate to you."  
  
"Oh yeah?" Dean challenged, focusing his eyes directly upon Dwayne's, peering right into his soul. "Do you have any idea what me and Chris are going through? Eddie is nearly dead right now. He can't speak, he can't hear, he can't even fucking feel. He probably doesn't even know that we're even there."  
  
Dwayne narrowed his own eyes. "The same with Steve."  
  
Dean Malenko gave Dwayne Johnson a look of contempt, snorting and looking away quickly. "Eddie's in a worse condition than Austin."  
  
"But at least he can still show his face to the world," Dwayne muttered, closing his eyes and moving down the hallway, the edges of his coat grazing along the white wall.  
  
Dean watched him peculiarly, but dismissed him just as quickly.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Any news?"  
  
A sad shake of his head. "Not even a damn flinch."  
  
"Shit," Dean muttered, entering the room while running a hand through his touseled, dirty brown hair. Sides of it stuck up in the air while the of the oily strands plastered themselves to the sides of his face. An annoyed look overcame his features, trying vainly to fix his bad case of bed-hair.  
  
Chris watched Dean with amused, weary eyes, resting in his regular green-colored chair placed next to the white bed, holding the comatose, unfeeling man he considered his friend. He rubbed his thumb over the placid, blanched skin, secretly hoping the unfeeling being would awaken.  
  
Eddie never stirred, his chest breathing up and down underneath the covers wrapping around him protectively. Sighing loudly, Chris released the limp, cold hand, moving his hands over and tucking the unconscious man deeper with the blankets.   
  
Dean watched Chris' ministrations, sitting on his normal chair next to the door. "How long is this gonna take?"  
  
Chris closed his eyes, holding onto Eddie's hand again. "I don't know." He paused, leaning back into his chair. "I hope soon."  
  
Taking out his book and watching the summer light dawning in the horizon outside of the dew-stained window, Dean opened it, removed the bookmark, and began to read. "I hope so too."
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> Summer days kept passing by quickly, rapidly even as the blazing golden sun came and went as it pleased, dipping beyond the hills and rising whenever it desired. Chris rarely slept, a trait Dean began to worry about. He tolerated it for awhile, quietly asking his friend to rest. He rarely listened.  
  
His concern grew. Chris shouldn't be like this. He would end up like Eddie -- shattered, broken... unfeeling. He shivered, walking out of the room where Chris continued his fit of insomnia, constantly gazing at the feeble man in the hospital bed. Dean understood automatically what Chris endured inside. He felt the same.  
  
Chris took it too much to heart, however. He was sacrificing himself for nothing. Dean knew, understood reality, accepted it. What if Eddie never woke up? What if he stayed in that state forever? What of Chris? What would happen to him? Would he always stay like that, blindly believing his best friend would awaken again?  
  
Dean shuddered as he poured himself a cup of water from the fountain on the other side of the hallway. As he walked back, Dean heard the faint sound of a familiar voice softly talking. Noticing the door to some patient's room slightly open, he walked forward and peered in.  
  
Glasses on and a feeble expression on his face, Mick read from the book, his seat directly next to the emotionless, cold body resting in the wheelchair. Mick's frame, however, blocked Dean's view of the other man's face, and he was grateful.   
  
"Lying on your back without anything to do and anywhere to go was kind of like being on a high hill far away from noise and people. It was like being on a camping trip all by yourself. You had plenty of time to think. You had time to figure things out. Things you'd never thought of before..."  
  
Dean smiled softly and left Mick alone to read to the man.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Chris!"  
  
Snorting in his sleep, Benoit turned around on his regular, comfy green chair, still holding onto Eddie's hand. The summer heat wrapped around him like a warm blanket or a loving embrace; yet, his face crinkled up, wishing not to be disturbed.  
  
"Chris!!"  
  
He crinkled his nose tighter, pulling the blanket over his face and mumbled something incoherent.   
  
"CHRIS!!!"  
  
Groaning loudly and peturbedly, Benoit snapped up into an up-right position, narrowing his eyes and glaring at a frantic Dean.  
  
"Wha?" he slurred out.  
  
In a sight that should have amused the Canadian (had he not been rudely awaken from a beautiful dream), Dean Malenko jumped up and down, frantically pointing to the open window of the hospital room. Words formed on his lips, but no sound was coming out.  
  
Benoit pursed his lips very tightly, narrowed his fatigued eyes, and rose his eyebrows.  
  
"Riiiiight," he said, flopping backwards into the chair and pulling the covers over him. "You go do that."  
  
Dean muffled a scream, holding onto bunches of his hair and ready to pull them out of his scalp. Instead, he pulled the blanket off of Chris, snapped his arm off of Eddie's limp one, and dragged him to the window.  
  
Pissed beyond his control, Benoit fought in Dean's grasp, yelling at him, "What the fuck is your problem?!"  
  
Able to think of the correct, intelligible words to say, Dean held onto Chris' head with two hands, and said in a boom voice, "LOOK. WINDOW. NOW."  
  
He snapped Benoit's head around, and Chris' eyes grew wide.  
  
Very, _very_ wide.  
  
As Dean's hands let go of his head, Chris felt his jaw drop, his body nearly sag to the floor in shock, and tried to register words into his head.  
  
He could not believe what he saw. Limply he lifted a hand to smack himself across the face. However, the sight didn't change.   
  
Millions upon millions of people holding flowers, or candles, or prayer books, or pictures -- all sorts of items -- swarmed outside of the hospital, filling the parking lot to the brim. No cars were in sight, only the people. All different races -- Jews, Italians, Latinos, Whites, Blacks -- gathered together, looking up into the very window the two friends were in, some crying, others praying, the rest conversing in whispers.  
  
They appeared all over the place, some resting in the forest protecting the hospital to rest. Tents were set up all around, some entering them, some leaving them, the rest staying within to sleep or to pray. Some people were roasting food over a fire, giving it to others to eat. Others made signs, or distributed more candles, or more prayer books. They came together as a unit, a gigantic, diverse family, all gathered for one person and one person only.  
  
It was like Jesus died and these were his followers, praying that he would come back, that he wouldn't end up this way, and that nothing would happen to him. They didn't want to see him go. They wanted him back with all their hearts and souls, and this was the only thing they could do. They could only show up, and show their support, and pray to God that he would come out of it alive.  
  
They all looked at the window, their faces the same. It didn't matter what color of skin they had. Each one of them had the same mission, and they shared the same goal.  
  
They all wanted Eddie alive.  
  
Chris slowly turned his head to Dean. "Wow."  
  
Dean could only nod his head.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Hey Dean?"  
  
Dean look up from his book, eyebrow rose in question. "Yeah?"  
  
"I'm wondering," Chris muttered, watching as a gigantic ring of Mexican women circled around a shrine of flowers and pictures, each one of them holding candles, whispering prayers in Spanish.   
  
"Wondering about what?"  
  
Diverting his attention from the spectecal outside in the parking lot, Chris' ice blue eyes narrowed. "How the hell did these people find out where we were?" He paused, gazing out the window again to the praying women. "I mean, Vince said this was an isolated location. How the hell could they find this place in the middle of nowhere?"  
  
Shrugging, Dean shook his head. "No clue." An idea sparked into his head and he smiled helplessly. "Maybe the internet?" he joked.  
  
Chris shrugged in turn. "Maybe. Hell if I know."  
  
Smiling gently and returning his attention back to his book, Dean asked, "You mind them being here?"  
  
"Nah, it ain't that," Chris casually murmured, leaning against the window, the flames of the candles melting into his ice blue eyes. "It's just... Eddie was in here for a year, and it takes them that long to come to show their support?"  
  
Turning the page, Dean responded. "Maybe it just took them that long to find out where the hell this place was. After all, Vince said it was isolated and unknown to the world."  
  
"I don't know..." Chris trailed off, sighing deeply, his mind clouded in thousands upon thousands of contemplations, unable to answer all of his secret inquiries and calm his restless soul. "All this, it just... just rubs me the wrong way, y'know?"  
  
An all-knowing, understanding smile graced Dean's lips, eyes focused on the book resting in his open hands. "You're just protective of your friend, that's all."  
  
He gave Dean a certain look, yet it melted instantly into admittance. "Yeah," he muttered. "Basically."  
  
Dean yelped a quick "heh," and turned the page again.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "E-excuse me?"   
  
Dean looked up from his book to gaze at the petite, innocent figure of the nurse. He welcomely smiled. "Yes?"  
  
She gulped slightly, shakily laughing. "There's _a lot_ of people here to see your friend," she said, biting the bottom of her lower lip. "_A lot_."  
  
Dean peaked his head out the window, mouth agape as he gazed unbelievingly at the gigantic line of people -- most of them fans he saw practically living outside of the hospital, others friends of Eddie's, the rest family members.  
  
He looked at the nurse helplessly. "Um," he started, raising his eyebrows, "family first?"  
  
The nurse nodded her head approvingly, walking away from the door and towards the gathered bunch of Latinos at the front of the line. Dean couldn't hear her words; however, immediately after she spoke, they rushed passed her, piling into the room and nearly slamming the door in his own face. A slight amused smile appeared on his face, watching as the Guerrero family practically hovered over Eddie, concern, worry, and fear etched into their eyes, faces, and mouths.  
  
A silent observer, like usual, Dean watched as Eddie's mother began to pray in Spanish, blessing her comatose son and clasping his hand to her breast, tears beginning to stream down her face. Mondo, one of Eddie's brothers, consoled her, wrapping a loving arm around her shoulders and holding her close, tears falling down his own cheeks as well. Even Chavo Sr., a man Dean thought would never come to see his brother's well-being, held his mother close. And at the corner of his eyes, tears formed.  
  
He watched as Eddie's wife bent down on two knees, and enwrapped her arms around her husbands' neck, kissing his blanched, cold cheek softly, her lips quivering, her eyes tired. Their two daughters stood silent in the background, the oldest refusing the cry, staying strong for her father's sake. She held her younger sister closer, resting a hand over her head, running it through her bouncing brown curls as the sweet innocent child cried a million tears for her unconscious father.  
  
Holding her husbands head closer to her heart, Eddie's wife began whispering things to him, things that Dean knew he wouldn't be able to hear, nor ever hear until he woke up. He sighed and lingered out of the room, giving the Guerreros time to themselves to mourn and pray for their beloved son, husband, father.   
  
The sun glistened through the windows as he passed down the hallway, eyeing the gigantic line waiting outside of Eddie's door. He saw a couple of people whom he recognized -- Shawn Michaels, Molly Holly, Shelton Benjamin -- and even a few he thought would never come -- CM Punk and AJ Styles. He smiled at them and nodded his head in greeting, yet he never said a word. For such an intense moment, Dean believed words, if any, were unnecessary.  
  
And as he walked down the stairs, he wondered where Chris was.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Santa Madre... Santa Madre, por favor... por favor ayuda mi hijo," Eddie's mother whispered, biting her lower lip down as sobs racked against her seventy-year-old chest.  
  
Mondo held his mother closer. "Mama, I know he'll wake up. Eddie es tan fuerte como ox."  
  
Chavo Sr. snickered on the side. "Y tambien tan stubborn como burro."  
  
"Don't make fun of Eddie at a time like this, Chavo!" Mondo sneered, glaring daggers at his brother.  
  
"Callate, both of you," Eddie's mother hissed, silencing both of her children. "No fighting. There shouldn't be any fighting while my son, tu hermano, is in a predictament like this."  
  
Mondo's eyes softened. "Lo siento, mi mama."  
  
Chavo Sr. turned his head away, ashamed. "Yo tambien."  
  
Eddie's wife, Vickie, ran a hand gently through her husbands hair. "When... when do you think he'll wake up?"  
  
Eddie's mother's gaze hardened. The room silenced, the only sound coming from the heart monitor. She sighed. "No se."  
  
Vickie closed her eyes, resting her head on Eddie's limp shoulder. "Same here." She kissed his skin. "I hope soon."  
  
"We have to be strong," Shaul, Eddie's eldest daughter muttered, ignoring the pricking sensation at her eyes and instead held her younger sister, Sheryl, closer. "Like dad is."  
  
A snort. "He won't wake up. He's weak."  
  
Chavo Sr. snapped his head around, practically growling like a feral, wild animal. "Pinche puto! Silencio!"  
  
The man stayed in the corner of the room, holding his shoulders and leaning against the wall. "It's the truth and you know it."  
  
Mondo turned around, still holding his mother close. "How can you speak of your uncle that way, Chavo?"  
  
Chavo Jr. snorted again, closing his eyes. "Because. He's weak, like dad says."  
  
Eddie's mother snapped her attention towards the eldest Chavo, the look of betrayal evident within. "Is that true, hijo?"  
  
Chavo Sr. sighed in defeat, linger his arm away from his mother's, the shame coming to surface. "I did. But no more. Not after... not after what happened to him." He closed his eyes and turned away, never once lifting his head. "Forgive me, mama."  
  
A hand rested on his shoulder and it moved to his face, forcing him to raise his head and open his eyes into the loving ones of his only mother. He smiled gently as she held him close, yet began to cry gently, holding onto her for any kind of support.  
  
Mondo cried as well, resting a hand on Chavo's shoulder and nodding his head, understanding. There were no need for words. None at all. Shaul watched on, smiling gently, keeping her sister close and walking over to her mom, resting a reassuring hand on her shivering shoulder, watching as she released all of her sorrows within.  
  
Chavo Jr. snorted, leaving the room, unable to understand how his father suddenly _loved_ Eddie, and how he could betray him. Why would his father care for a worthless man like his uncle?! For years, Eddie suppressed him from his stardom, and now that he was dead -- was he? -- he would be the Guerrero to shine and have infinite stardom and fame.  
  
He walked down the opposite side of the hallway, away from the faces of his uncle's friends, and loyal fans. Chavo walked into the shadows of the hallway, unable to notice how the sun never touched the ground, stopping immediately at the shadows. Occupied with his bitter thoughts, he slumped into an empty cushioned bench, resting his arms on his knees, and sighing loudly.  
  
He couldn't understand. Why was Eddie loved now? By everyone? Even people who don't even like the sport of wrestling adore, idolize, and even respect his uncle. He cursed a Spanish word underneath his breath, pursing his lips and running a hand through his hair.   
  
"So fucked up," he muttered aloud without his consent.  
  
A voice chuckled next to him. "You can say that again."  
  
Chavo snapped his head up, diverting his attention to the right, and his eyes went wide. "What are you doing here?"  
  
Mick Foley smiled, sitting next to Chavo on the bench, a book in his hand. "Being a friend." He eyed him with a certain all-knowing, wise, amused gleam. "Should you be a family member?"  
  
The latino rolled his eyes. "Right. I'm not like the rest of those fools."  
  
The other man smiled, bemused, staring ahead. "Sometimes it's good to be a fool."  
  
"Why so?"  
  
"A fool is ignorant," Mick explained, opening a page in his book and looked down at the words within, "and ignorance is bliss."  
  
"What the hell's so great about being ignorant?" Chavo asked, eyebrows burrowed, a puzzled look in his eyes. "Ignorant people don't make it in the world. You have to be wise, and smart."  
  
"Heh," Mick whispered, closing the book, along with his eyes. "When you are wise, you know everything. And when you know everything, the burden is too much to handle." He sat up, walking towards the open door of a hospital room. "If I were you, I'd go back and be a fool, while I still had a chance."  
  
Chavo's bewildered gaze never faltered. "I don't understand... why should I be a fool? I don't want to be one."  
  
Mick stopped, keeping his hand over the doorknob. "Do you know whose in this room?"  
  
Chavo blinked. "What?"  
  
He smirked at the irony. "I'm just asking. Do you know whose in this room?"  
  
Unable to answer, Chavo shook his head.  
  
Mick didn't have to turn around to see his silent answer. "Then go back, Chavo. Get away from here while you still can."  
  
"But why?"  
  
He sighed. Hard. "Because once you step through these doors, you can't ever be a fool _or_ a wise man again. You can't be anything else. Ever." Mick opened the door and walked inside, turning his head around to eye Chavo. "I don't want that to happen to you. I don't think you want that either."  
  
He moved his head forward. "Go back and mourn for your uncle, Chavo. It's the wisest thing to do."  
  
Mick closed the door behind him. Chavo sat on the seat for a few more seconds, pondering and questioning the elder man's words. Sighing softly, he rose to his feet and walked down the hallway, back into the sunlight, back into Eddie's room, back to where these so-called "fools" where.  
  
In the back of his mind, Chavo wondered exactly what made Mick that way. What in the world made Mick become something that wasn't a fool or a wise man? Why was he even thinking about it in the first place? It's irrelevant, stupid, pointless. He shouldn't think about it.  
  
He ignored it, keeping it the last thing in the back of his mind, and reconciled with his family. He heeded Mick's words, and mourned and wept over his uncle, like the others.  
  
However, on the other side of the wall, he could hear the muffled sounds of Mick's voice, possibly reading from that book he saw earlier.  
  
"He was a dead man with a mind that could still think. He knew all the answers that the dead knew and couldn't think about. He could speak for the dead because he was one of them. He was the first of all the soldiers who had died since the beginning of time who still had a brain left to think with. Nobody could dispute with him. Nobody could prove him wrong. Because nobody knew but he."  
  
The words chilled him. Yet, as the family embraced him with warm hugs and welcoming words, Chavo forgot everything, and followed Mick's directions. He became a fool, like he ordered.  
  
And on the other side of the wall, Mick smiled. Bitterly.  
  
"Lucky devil," he muttered.  
  
He eyed the man in the wheelchair, sighed, and continued to read.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Whose in there now?"  
  
Dean watched the birds fly in the cloudless blue sky, the wind swaying the trees back and forth. "Shawn, I think. The family left a couple minutes ago."  
  
"Did you tell them I said 'hi'?"  
  
Dean smiled. "Yeah. Vickie wondered where the hell you were."  
  
"Nah," Chris said, a small smile on his face, the light bouncing off of his fatigued features, "they needed time to themselves, y'know, to be with Eddie. I'm glad I didn't intrude."  
  
"To them, you _are_ family. Don't forget that."  
  
Chris' smile grew. "I guess."  
  
"Where were you anyways?"  
  
"... talking with Mick."  
  
"Oh?" Dean asked, moving his eyes towards the man next to him. "What did he say?"  
  
He shrugged. "Nothing really. Just light conversation."  
  
Dean nodded his head, returning his attention to the beautiful scenery in front of him. "That's good. Y'know, he's been here a pretty long time, you know that, right?"  
  
"Yeah, so I've heard," he muttered, narrowing his eyes. "He hasn't ever said how long, though."  
  
A pensive gleam washed over Dean's steel blue eyes. "Maybe he wants to keep it private... or people just simply forgot."  
  
Chris eyed him, yet diverted his attention back to the sky. "Maybe."  
  
The two stayed in silence, the sounds of nothingness echoing in the hallway.  
  
"So what were you two really talking about?"  
  
Chris paused. "Nothing."  
  
"Nothing?"  
  
"Yeah, nothing. Mick just said something about the concept of 'nothingness' and walked off. I have no clue what he meant."  
  
Dean blinked twice, bewildered completely. "How strange."  
  
"Tell me about it."  
  
"Maybe being in this hospital for so long has gotten to his head."  
  
"Or maybe those chair-shots to the head for so many years."  
  
"Chris!" Dean snapped.  
  
"What?!" Chris yelled, a light smile on his face. "I'm innocent!"  
  
Dean shook his head, washing his hands of the matter. "I think you hanged out too much with Eddie."  
  
Chris' face fell. "Yeah."  
  
Both sighed, looking out the window again and the silence overlapping the conversation once more.   
  
"You wanna go get something to eat?"  
  
"... sure."  
  
Dean beamed. "Good. Cause you haven't eaten for weeks and I was about ready to shove you into the damn cafeteria and hand-feed you whatever they had."  
  
Chris laughed, walking down the hallway with his friend. "And knowing you, you would've done that."  
  
"Damn straight."
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> A professional, commanding voice coughed loudly. "Excuse me?"  
  
Both Benoit and Dean's heads snapped towards the door, eyes wide in shock. Neither could believe that _he_ of all people stood there. Dean rapidly blinked, mouth agape, as Benoit's mouth slightly opened, hand tightening around Eddie's.  
  
Vince McMahon weakly smiled, still keeping his upright, proud posture, an aura of domination and control around him. He entered the room, fixing his business suit, dusting it off and walking over towards the hospital bed, across from Benoit.  
  
Chris glared viciously at his boss. "What are you doing here?" he sneered.  
  
The billionare owner of the largest wrestling conglomerate in the world rose his squared chin in the air. "Keep your cool, Benoit," he commanded, a smug look on his face. "I don't think you'd like to snap right now, especially with your comatose friend here."  
  
Benoit calmed down, breathing harshly, but he grit his teeth, baring them like a wild animal. "Just tell me what you want, and get the fuck out."  
  
Vince's face hardened, glaring just as violently as Chris was. "I came, Benoit, to check up on my employee. It's been almost a year, you know."  
  
"I know," Chris muttered under his breath, cursing the man in front of him to high hell. "Almost one year since he gave up his own goddamn body in May and still wrestled a few days after."  
  
Guilt appeared in Vince's eyes, yet it faded quickly. "It wasn't my fault. He decided to push himself."  
  
"He did it to make sure the company survived, you asshole!" Chris snapped, rising from his chair and turning his free hand into a sharp fist. "All the big-named superstars were gone, and he knew he had to do something stupid to keep the company up, and get YOU off of HIS back!"  
  
"Chris, calm down," Dean warned, placing his book on the chair next to the door and walking over to his friend.   
  
"You wanted Eddie to die, asshole," Chris bitterly hissed through grit teeth. "He bled all over the fucking place, all for your damn company. He did it, and now look at him." He reached over and grabbed Vince by the collar, spitting right into his face.  
  
"Chris!" Dean yelled, pulling Chris away from Eddie's bed and restraining him. "Calm the fuck down!"  
  
"Get the hell out of here!" Chris yelled, thrashing against Dean's grasp. "You aren't wanted! You shouldn't even be here! You drove Eddie to this! It's you're damn fault!!"  
  
Stoically, Vince wiped the spit away from his cheek, the apathy evident in his eyes. Pursing his lips, he looked at Eddie and then back at Chris.  
  
"All right, so I take some of the blame," Vince murmured, raising his chin and proudly admitted, with the guilt in his eyes. "I did put pressure on Eddie here, telling him to make sure to sell that damn pay-per-view in LA for all its worth, no matter what. I didn't know he was gonna go out there and do a bloodfest, but he did it, and it made ratings, and for that, I'm grateful."  
  
"You're grateful that he nearly bled to death out on live television?!" Chris yelled, snarling wildly. "You're an animal!"  
  
"No," Vince muttered, narrowing his eyes, "I'm a business man. We're worse an animals. We're cold, calculated, vicious, strong... cruel, and morbid even at times. We don't care. As long as we get money, that's all we care about. That's the only thing that makes us smile. We are monsters. But me?" He smiled. "I'm not like the rest of them. I've got at least some piece of my humanity with me."  
  
"Which is somewhere between zero and nothing," Chris muttered, calming down, yet glaring still at the man in front of him.  
  
Vince smirked. "Not quite. Somewhere in this old bastard heart of mine, I've got... sympathy in there. And yes, guilt, sorrow, and even a little bit of compassion. I'm a good guy when I WANT to be a good guy."  
  
"You're disgusting," Dean muttered, his loathe for Vince showing as well.  
  
"Go ahead and hate me," Vince said, a ping of sadness in the apathy. "Does it look like I care? No, because the whole fucking world hates me, and I'm practically used to it by now." He laughed heartily, placing a hand in the pocket of his coat. "Hell, I practically thrive on it! I love it when people hate me. Because the more you hate me, the more you'll want to hate me.   
  
"See, the psychology of people is easy to figure out. If you hate a person so much, you'll want to hate that person until the guy dies. If you love a person to death, you'll want to be loyal and faithful to him or her for the rest of your life. People are very easy to understand." He grinned from ear-to-ear. "That's why I'm a multi-billonare and I write out your paychecks. Because I know people. Because I embody the people."  
  
"You, Vince, simply embody everything humanity hates about themselves," Chris stated, releasing himself from Dean's grasp. "I suggest you get out of here. You're not wanted anymore. Or I swear, I'll ask the hospital to get the police to escort you out of here."  
  
His smugness never wavered. "So you say, Chris. I can buy myself out of jail. Money's the greatest weapon humanity ever created, you see. It can kill people or create success. It can give hope towards others, or it can shatter their dreams. Money is the unattainable dream, or the ugliest nightmare. It's everything a person wants, and nothing at all."  
  
"Get. Out. NOW." Chris pronounced very clearly, his voice echoing in the room.  
  
Vince snorted, fixing his coat with both of his hands and glaring at both men. "Fine. I only came to tell you that after Eddie wakes up, he still has a job at the company. We'll find some way to get him back into the storyline."  
  
"Good, now get the fuck out," the Canadian hissed again, Dean putting a hand on his shoulder to cease him from pummeling the old business man.  
  
Snorting loudly, Vince silently exited the room, going down the hallway the opposite way towards the shadows. Slumping back into his seat, Chris sighed loudly, placing his hand instinctively around Eddie's and relaxing his head on the seat.  
  
Dean patted Chris' shoulder, walking over to his place in the room next to the door, picking up his book and reading it once again, flipping to the next page. Chris watched Dean, and lifted his head slightly, eyeing the book.  
  
"Say, what book are you reading anyways?"  
  
Dean softly smiled. "Catch-22."  
  
Chris rose an eyebrow, eyes wide. "Isn't that the book about an American named Yossarian who fought in the second-half of World War II?"  
  
He grinned from ear-to-ear. "You remember. But yeah, I've been reading it. Can't stop reading it."  
  
"How come?"  
  
"The ending, Chris," he explained, turning the page and focusing on the words inside. "The ending is so gorgeous and true. He went through all this warfare, all this hell, and at the end, he decides to say 'fuck it all I'm gonna live, I'm gonna be free, and I'm not gonna kill anymore' and he puts his gun down and runs all the way to Sweden, a neutral country."  
  
"But isn't that a sign of cowardice?"  
  
Dean shook his head, bemused. "No. When he heard his friend Orr, that crazed fix-it man, made it to Sweden, he gained something, a certain ideal he thought he could never have." He lifted his eyes from the book. "He had hope. If Orr could do it, why couldn't he? So he dropped it all, and fled for safety, salvation, hope."  
  
Benoit smiled softly and rested his head back on the chair. "You're telling me something, aren't you, Dean?"  
  
An innocent gleam entered Dean's eyes. "Oh, am I? Whatever do you mean?"  
  
Chuckling softly, Chris relaxed, looking at the ceiling. "I still have hope. Not a lot, but it's still there."  
  
"Little or not, it's good to have hope," he said, reading from the book again.   
  
"Yeah," Chris muttered, "you're right."  
  
Dean turned the page. "Wanna get something to eat later?"  
  
Chris shrugged. "Sure."
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> Vince stared at the open door, his hand literally hovering over the cold gold-colored metal of the knob, his fingers twitching anxiously.  
  
Should he do it? Why should he? Why was he even here? That man beyond the door was dead. He shouldn't look. Curiosity killed the cat. He wasn't gonna be stupid. He was smart. A business man. A monster. Monsters don't make mistakes.  
  
But... should he? They were bitter rivals, equals, could have been the best of friends. But they hated one another. He should be glad he's dead. Isn't he dead? Just one look through the creaked door, Vince, and you can go. Go back to your life and have your company and your money and your control.  
  
Vince moved towards the right, eyes lingering over the wood, looking into the room--  
  
He quickly snatched his hand away from the door, stepped back and walked down the hallway, grabbing his cell from the inside of his coat and calling his limo driver to pick him up.  
  
A pair of wise, tired brown eyes watched him leave.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> No.   
  
No, this wasn't real.  
  
Wasn't true, wasn't real, it's a dream, goddamit, it's a nightmare, it can't be real, no no no not real never real can't be real oh my God please wake me get me out of here--  
  
He looked out the window. The fans vanished.  
  
He looked out in the hallway. The friends disappeared.  
  
He looked out in the lobby. The family left.  
  
All gone can't be gone why gone? Oh god oh god oh go--  
  
Eddie.   
  
What happened?  
  
Why how who what where when why?  
  
Why why why?  
  
Dean.  
  
Good ol' Dean, great Dean, fantastic Dean, best friend Dean. He'll tell the truth, he knows the truth, it's a nightmare, he'll say its a nightmare and he'll wake up and it'll all be over, this nightmare.  
  
Dean looked at Chris. Chris look at Dean.  
  
"Dean?" Chris frantically asked. "Wh-where are they?"  
  
Dean couldn't meet Chris in the eyes. He kept his head downcast, gaze fixated upon the floor with his hands in his pockets. "It's over," he whispered.  
  
Chris' eyes widened. "What?"  
  
Snapping his own blue eyes shut, Dean hissed, "He's dead." He lifted his neck up. "The doctors told Vince this morning, and he announced it." Turning his head around, he slowly opened his eyes into tiny slits. "The whole world knows it."  
  
Mouth agape, eyes wide, and unable to breathe, Chris choked out a simple sound. "No."  
  
Sighing deeply, Dean took a hand out of his pocket and ran it through his tousled hair. "Chris," he began, "you and I both know the truth. We just gotta admit it now."  
  
He still couldn't breathe. "No."  
  
"Don't be so stubborn," Dean hissed, grabbing Chris by the shoulders and shaking his stiff, prone form slightly. "It's been a year, Chris, and he hasn't gone out of that coma. There's no chance that he'll make it."  
  
Chris couldn't blink. "N-no." he shook his head frantically. "Th-that's wrong. He's n-not even d-dead. They're wrong. I m-mean... it's not even a y-year."  
  
"You're delusional," Dean stated with his wavering voice. "Chris Benoit, it has been three years and two months -- since May of _three years ago_ -- since Eddie went into that coma. Sure, Vince agreed with you that it was almost a year, but that's because the old fool doesn't know the track of time anymore. You've been sitting here, wasting your life away, in this hospital, for one year, and two months. **Three** years, and **two** months. It's time you wake up, get out of here and have your life back."  
  
He shook his head, unable to speak.  
  
Dean growled, shaking Chris. "Get. Out. Get out of here while you still can."  
  
He shook his head harder than before, his eyes scrunching up, trying not to cry, his mouth pursing.  
  
"Chris, we don't even know if when he wakes up he'll even be the same goddamn person!" Dean yelled, shaking Benoit harsher than before. "Do you want to see Eddie like that?! Do you?! Hell, we don't even know if he'll ever wake up at all! It's been a year and two fucking months, Chris! When the hell are you gonna wake up?!"  
  
"You're the one who told me to keep the faith, goddamit!" Chris yelled, breaking the hold Dean had on him and stepping back, far away from his so-called friend. "You told me to have hope like Y-Yossarian found at the end of that damn book you were reading!"  
  
"Well guess what else Catch-22 spoke about?!" Dean shouted back with a condescending, all-knowing tone in his cracked voice. "It talks about how fucked up life is, how inevitable death is, how impotent language is, how fucking powerful a bureaucracy is, how a person can lose faith in God because of all the shit that happens all around and the shit the person endures! It basically says the whole world is fucked, that all we're good for is creating wars and making bloodshed and even when we find that little sliver of hope, it means jack shit because once you make it to salvation, it's only a goddamn dream!"  
  
Chris refused to meet Dean's glare. "But... what if it was a real? What if... what if you do find that haven you've been looking for all your life?"  
  
Dean snorted. "Wake the fuck up, Chris, and get into the real world. Hope and faith aren't the strongest things to rely on."  
  
He leaned against the wall, near the open door of Eddie's hospital room. "But... but you told me to have... have hope."  
  
"I was a fool, Chris," Dean whispered, turning the opposite way towards the light cascading over the linolium tiling of the floor glistening brightly. "I thought he would make it. I really did. But just like Yossarian... I lost that hope. That faith. Yossarian couldn't believe in a God who would create a thing like human suffering, so many options for pain and death and destruction."   
  
He sighed long and hard, stuffing his hands into his pockets and lifting his head up. "And that's how I feel about Eddie. I don't have any more hope, and I lost the faith in him. The only reason I even stayed here was for you, waiting for you to take your time, waiting for you to wake up. Well guess what? I just can't wait anymore for you. From the beginning, since I came here, I knew you were delusional, but I never said a goddamn word. I knew you wanted to stay in your dream world, and I stayed there on the sidelines, making sure nothing bad happened to you. I let you think whatever you wanted to think, and I would just nod and listen. But I can't do that anymore, Chris. It's over now, and I can't do it anymore.  
  
"I don't know how long it'll take you to realize the truth, and I hope someday you do return back home to your wife and children, cause they do miss you. The world misses you. I'll miss you. Don't end up like Eddie. Don't end up dying in this hospital. Don't be like him, go off and live. Go be like Yossarian. Run for Sweden, run for salvation Don't stay. Go. Live. Be free."  
  
Chris stayed silent, holding his elbows and walking forward into the room, standing in the middle of the doorway. "If that's the real world... if that's freedom," he whispered, "I'll stay here... in the dream world, in my prison."  
  
"It's not a dream," Dean retorted softly. "It's a nightmare."  
  
"No," Chris whispered defeatedly, "the real world is a nightmare. Nightmares can end sometime. But in reality, it's never-ending." He smirked. "Besides... that's the coward's way out."  
  
Dean heard the sound of the hospital door closing behind his once-friend. He sighed, staying in his standing position for awhile, killing his sudden urge to be with Chris a little bit more.  
  
It was over, and he accepted it.  
  
He walked forward.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> He was alone. All alone.  
  
No more fans coming into the room, placing flowers, their tears replacing the dewdrops on their petals. No more family members praying in Spanish, whispering to God above, their eyes pleading to the ceiling, pleading to their Lord, their Savior, their Messiah to be merciful and bring back their brother, their husband, their father, their son, their lover. No more friends to say hello, to cry their sorrows and regrets, to give him a reassuring hug, telling him to keep his hope and faith and to never let it go.  
  
No more Dean reading his little book over and over and over again. No more Dean telling him to go to sleep. No more Dean advising him to eat and stop acting so damn mopey. No more Dean, no more friends, no more family, no more fans. Nothing, no more, none of it at all. They were gone, every last one of them. They didn't care... they gave up.  
  
Except him.   
  
Maybe it was his stubborn streak, his determination, his bullheadedness being stronger than what others thought of him. He refused to give up. He denied that Eddie might wake up and would never be the same, might wake up and not know who he is -- the guy that stayed with him, his best friend, and held onto his hand like a lost child, sometimes forgetting who that lost child was, him or Eddie, might wake up and might be insane and think that this world, the real world, was nothing but a dream.  
  
Or he might not wake up at all.  
  
He wouldn't believe it, couldn't believe it, didn't want to believe it. Chris wasn't going to believe it. He was going to be strong, like Eddie was, like Eddie always was, and he was going to stay by Eddie and be there for him, even if he doesn't know, and might never know.   
  
Eddie, Eddie, hear me, Eddie, Eddie wake up, Eddie, Eddie, it's me. It's Chris. See me? It's me. Your friend. Your best friend. Why did you do this? Why did you break your promise? Why did you do this again?  
  
You didn't have to do this.  
  
You didn't have to do this, Eddie.  
  
You didn't have to try and kill yourself.  
  
Why in the world did you do that to yourself, purposely go out there doing matches when you knew what was happening to you, every fucking goddamn step of the way, never minding what those doctors said, like they were speaking an alien language to you so you ignored them just as easily as you ignored the worries your family, friends and fans had when you started taking drugs and alcohol, mixing them together like some goddamn drink, a concontion made from the Devil himself, things sent from Hell all the way to you, to corrupt your soul, to make you die and they could take you away and never give Heaven the benefit of the doubt. They wouldn't ever give Heaven your soul, never ever. The selfish bastards.  
  
But you did this, willingly. How could you do this to yourself?! Did you want to put me and your family and friends and everyone into so much worry and trouble all because you needed some attention or something?! Why in the world did you want to kill yourself slowly, internally, never telling a goddamn soul? God, Eddie, that's foolish. Out of the drugs, the alcohol, the mishaps of yesterday, that was the worst one.  
  
If I wasn't your friend, I wouldn't be here, everyday, every hour, every fucking minute, wondering and praying and hoping to God that you'd wake up someday and squeeze back the grip, the death grip I have over your limp hand, wish that you'd say something, or even wake up and say "Hey Chris let's get out of this fucking room and get something to eat, I'm starving."  
  
You were internally bleeding, losing more and more of yourself, bleeding on the outside, the insane, physically, and even emotionally, but what did you do? You tried to fix your own wounds, try and help yourself. But Eddie, we were here, I was here, I AM HERE. You could have asked me. That's all you had to do and I woulda been there in a second.  
  
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie... Eddie please, I'm here. I've always been here. All you have to do, Eddie, is wake up. Wake up, and wake up now. Make this world better.  
  
Make it all better. Please.  
  
Gazing down at Eddie's limp form on the bed, Chris watched him -- helplessly, hopelessly, pathetically -- tears forming inside his eyes.  
  
Eddie never moved.  
  
Something within Chris snapped, and it resonated in his mind.  
  
He couldn't take it anymore.  
  
He just couldn't take it anymore.  
  
He was tired of all of this... this... all of this shit. All this godamn fucking shit. He was tired of the naysayers. He was tired of hearing "no, he's gonna die," "no, Chris, you're an idiot," "no, he ain't gonna make it," "yeah, he'll be a vegetable for the rest of his life," "Chris you fool," "Chris how could you?", "Chris, get out of there"...  
  
Get out, Chris. Get out while you still can.  
  
It's a monster. Some kind of monster. A monster that's ready to kill you, murder you, take you away from the world and eat you whole and alive and you'll never ever go to Heaven or Hell or anywhere else. You'll just stay in that barren desolate place, alone and alone forever and you don't want that do you?  
  
Chris Chris Chris Chris, you are an idiot, you are here and he's dead and you want to be dead just like him don't you? You want to end up in his world, go into his mind and be with him and stay with him and be like that for the rest of your life, and even beyond that. You want to stay imprisoned in these four walls, they keep on coming after you, you idiot. They aren't your friend, they want to see you dead too, don't you see that?  
  
Idiot, asshole, dickhead, you are gonna die just like Eddie there. Die die die. You see that? He's dead, you're dying, and you're gonna end up just like him. Just like Eddie, that stupid drug addict, that fucking dumb asshole Mexican, idiot Mexican didn't know when the stop, didn't know when to say "I quit, I'm done, I'm never gonna do it again," didn't know how to express how he was feeling, the torture he had inside -- "fucking hell, Chris, I need some help." Fucking Mexican, dirty Mexican, you're clean, Chris, don't stay around him, don't end up like him, don't be friends with him. You'll end up like him. Friends influence friends, and he's the wrong influence for a sweet, wonderful, great guy like you get out get out get the fuck out now.  
  
Wrong wrong, no no, bad bad, stay away, stay away. You did wrong, Chris. Wrong wrong -- no I did right! -- you did wrong, you did bad, you are wrong and always knew you were wrong about Eddie, you knew he wasn't gonna make it -- HE IS GONNA MAKE IT -- no he isn't, and you know that don't you? Don't you don't you don't you? You won't admit it, you won't admit i--  
  
"_SHUT UP!!_" Chris screamed, falling onto the floor while holding onto his head, tears pouring from his eyes. He crumbled to the ground like a ruined pillar of an old, dead empire, smashed upon the floor and unable to pick himself up and place the pieces back together.  
  
Wrong, bad, evil, wrong, stupid, motherfucking id--  
  
"_SHUT UP!_ Shut the fuck up and leave m-- leave us **alone**!!" Chris shrieked on top of his lungs, pulling on his hair and shaking his head back and forth. He didn't know whether his eyes were open or not. The tears fell without his consent, and he didn't care. His body moved back and forth, trying to calm himself.   
  
They were wrong, always wrong. He was RIGHT. Eddie was going to mak-- no he wasn'-- YES. HE. WAS. Goddamit, he's gonna make it!   
  
He sobbed gently, his lips quivering, his body trembling, tears falling, trailing down his cheeks, splashing upon the tile floor. "No," he whispered. He gulped hard, blinking a few times, rocking back and forth. "No."  
  
The moonlight entered the room, yet he didn't pay attention to it. His body laid next to Eddie's bed, guarding it, always protecting it, protecting Eddie. He cared for Eddie, he would do anything for Eddie, anything for Eddie. He considered him a friend, a brother, even went to lengths of saying that he loved him. He just wanted to keep Eddie safe -- but you couldn't you couldn't do it look at where he is now he's dying and you can't do a damn thing -- SHUT THE FUCK UP -- you can't do a damn thing he's dying and you're gonna end up like hi -- SHUT UP.  
  
Chris --  
  
SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT SHUT SHUT IT ALL UP.  
  
Chr--  
  
FUCK YOU FUCK OFF DAMMIT FUC--  
  
He's. Dying. Look at him. He's DYING.  
  
He's NOT! He's gonna make it!  
  
Dying, dying, dyingdyingdying!  
  
NO! Shut up! Just who are you!?  
  
You should know.   
  
No, I don't! Get the fuck out of my head, you psychotic asshole! You're wrong, just like the rest of them. Just like Dean, and-- and everyone else! YOU ARE WRONG!  
  
I'm right. You know that I'm right.  
  
You're wrong!  
  
I'm right.  
  
WRONG!!  
  
Then prove it, Chris.  
  
...  
  
Irony washed over him. A gigantic wave of irony overcame his senses and Chris froze.  
  
... what?  
  
You heard me. Prove me wrong.  
  
... WHAT?  
  
Heh. Please, Chris. Don't use that line. It isn't even your own.  
  
J-just... who are you... what are you?  
  
Chris, it's very simple.   
  
... then, who are you?  
  
Not even gonna guess?  
  
Tell me who the FUCK you are or so help me--  
  
Chris, you know who I am.  
  
No, I don't.  
  
Oh yes, you do.  
  
Stop with the fucking mind games, asshole, and tell me who you are.  
  
...  
  
Tell me.  
  
...  
  
I'm you.  
  
...  
  
Chris felt himself beginning to suffocate. He took in a breath, and focused his attention on his lungs.  
  
... no.   
  
Sad, but true.  
  
NO.  
  
I can't help the way you are, Chris. We are one in the same.  
  
NO.   
  
Please, Chris, stop denying. It's true. Just admit it.  
  
NO!  
  
Please, Chris, you're acting like a child. Stop this.  
  
No.... you're insane. Just like the rest of them. Insane. All insane. Not right. Wrong. Just wrong. WRONG.  
  
But isn't that a contradiction? Telling yourself that you're wrong, when you say that you're right? That you're always right?  
  
N-no... NO!  
  
Chris, stop this foolish crusade. Give up. You know the truth, because I am it. I am your truth.  
  
No... you're telling lies.  
  
I'm your reason.  
  
You're no reason. You're the opposite.  
  
I'm your love for Eddie. If you loved him, you'd give up and move on.  
  
You're my hate. Only if I hated him would I give up.  
  
This is a dream, Chris. All you have to do is wake up and get away from here, the hospital, those foolish people waiting and praying outside--  
  
You're my mind going astray of it's path. My mission is to stay here and to protect Eddie and that's that.  
  
Don't you see, Chris?! I'm your only true friend now. Eddie's gone, he's dead, and you know it because I AM YOU. Look inside and you will see ME. And I AM YOU.  
  
No.  
  
Yes, Chris.  
  
NO.  
  
_They_ betray. Eddie betrayed on his promise. Remember that, Chris? How he promised he would NEVER EVER go back to drugs? Now look at him... he betrayed. I'm your only true friend now.  
  
No.  
  
I'm your ONLY true fri--  
  
NO.  
  
I'm forever here.  
  
NO!  
  
I'm YOU.  
  
GET. THE. FUCK. OUT. OF. MY. HEAD.  
  
Now, now, Chris. Think logically. You can't get rid of me. I'm you. I'm apart of you, and I always will be.  
  
... but--  
  
I am you, and you am I. We are the same, a living being. One.  
  
But--  
  
ONE.  
  
... yes.  
  
See? Now you understand.  
  
One.  
  
Yes. There you go, Chris. Now that wasn't so hard, was it? Easy to understand, huh? Now, all you have to do is--  
  
One.  
  
Yes, yes, Chris. One. Now you--  
  
But I am one person. And you are one in your own.  
  
... what? What are you getting at?  
  
I am one, you are one, but we are together in one body.  
  
... No, Chris, you don't under--  
  
I can't get rid of you... but I can ignore you.  
  
Really? And how long can you ignore me, Chris? I'll haunt you, murder you slowly inside your heart, your mind, your soul until all you can hear and think and see and even breath is ME.  
  
I'll ignore you.  
  
You can't. You can't do that.  
  
Really?  
  
Yes.  
  
Prove it.  
  
...   
  
On the outside, Chris felt a smirk form on his tear-stained, chapped, swollen lips.  
  
Speechless, are we?  
  
Don't pull that on me, Chris. You can't do that to me.  
  
Aww, but I thought you knew me? After all, you said that I am you and you am I, so we are one in the same. You should know me by now.  
  
Don't pull that shit on me.  
  
What shit? I shit you not!  
  
Shut the fuck up.  
  
Getting a little hot under the collar, are we?   
  
No.  
  
Oh really? Then why did you get so defensive when I said that we were each one separate being in one body?  
  
No, I did n--  
  
Oh YES you did. I can ignore you. You're not the right owner of me. I am the owner of my own soul, my own body, my heart and my soul and my reason and my truth. You are nothing but the negativity, all the shit that I'VE been hearing from others.  
  
N--  
  
Shut the fuck up and piss off.  
  
You can't get rid of me that easily! How do you even attempt to ignore me when I am inside?! You can't get to me!  
  
Why, now, that's simple, really.  
  
How?!  
  
... you never existed.  
  
...   
  
Chris felt that other voice gasp, and he began to chuckle.  
  
You don't exist. You're nothing. And when something is nothing, you are not here anymore.   
  
You're a fool.  
  
Get the fuck out of my head, okay? Thanks.  
  
You can't ignore me forever.  
  
I think, my friend, I proved you wrong.  
  
Gravity fell off of Chris' shoulders, and he felt the vision returning to his sight. Moonlight greet him and a puddle of tears it shined off of. He gulped slowly, yet the smirk never left his face. He didn't know what occurred -- Was it a fit of insanity? Was this room really, finally getting to him? -- yet he overcame it.   
  
Maybe it was the darkness of his soul, the hollowness of his heart rising up into his mind and trying to control him, rip him away from Eddie. He smiled, a triumphant glow warming him. He overcame it.  
  
He scooted himself back into the wall of the room, lying back and reaching out to Eddie's limp hand. Clutching it gently, his heavy-lidded, blurry blue eyes gazed at it, hoping that maybe Eddie would return the grasp. He sighed after a few moments passed. The time wasn't here, he concluded.  
  
He chuckled bitterly, his thumb caressing the cold, numb flesh. "Not even I can stop myself," he whispered.  
  
Succumbing to sleep, Chris never released Eddie's hand the entire night.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> A damp cloth mattered gently across his forehead, slowly opening his eyes. Trying to fix his blurry vision, he blinked a few times, tenderly lifting his neck and groaning aloud. The pounding in his head ceaselessly annoyed him, gritting his teeth as he began to push himself away from the wall.  
  
A hand pushed him back. "Sleeping beauty finally decides to wake up?"  
  
Chris chuckled weakly. "Wrong guy." He grunted, attempting to push himself up into an up-right position but the hand firmly stopped him again. "How long was I out?"  
  
The cloth peeled off of his forehead, leaving behind trails of water. "About a week, from what the nurses told me." Strong hands lifted him up and carried him to an empty chair. "They were afraid to move you, thought you were dead. So they called me in. But I knew, Chris."  
  
"You should," Chris murmured, his head resting comfortably on the soft cushion of the arm rest. "You of all people should know me by now."  
  
A snort. "You're a crazy bastard, I swear."  
  
Benoit smiled gently, sleep overtaking him like a lonely duvet wrapping around his body and keeping him alive, warm, loved. "Why did you come back?"  
  
Laughing softly, Dean Malenko took off his coat and laid it over the weary Canadian's body. He took out a familiar book, sat in the chair next to the door and began to read. "I figured you needed a ride home."  
  
A laugh escaped through Chris' lips. "Yeah."  
  
Outside of the hospital room's window, the trees changed colors, from the thriving green to dead lackluster of orange and yellow and brown and red, falling from the oak, sturdy branches, staining the ground, fluttering everywhere. Summer changed into autumn.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Wake up."  
  
Opening his eyes, Dean yawned loudly, stretching his muscles as he heard a voice echoing out in the hallway. His eyes searched on the outside, the shadow of a tired man greeting him.  
  
The shadow moved its head back and forth, tresses of hair falling in front of its face. It sighed and lifted its head, possibly gazing at something -- or someone.  
  
"Wake _up_."  
  
The desperation and sorrow in the shadow's voice made Dean's eyes water involuntarily. He rubbed against his fatigued blue eyes, gulping down a bitter substance. Shuddering completely, he leaned forward, and closed the door to the room.   
  
His sight turned to the window where the autumn morning greeted him, the diversely colored trees -- some red, others mixed with green and yellow, few with any brown leaves left -- and a light smile graced his features. Leaning back into the chair and succumbing to sleep again, Dean wandered back into his dreamworld.  
  
He ignored the sounds of the shadow on the other side.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> Dean smiled, placing a metal tray of food on Chris' lap, watching as steam fluttered from the eggs and bacon into the air. "Eat up," he said, stealing one of the bacon on Chris' gleaming white plate.  
  
Chris grinned in return, picking up a fork and munching on some of the hash browns, temporarily releasing Eddie's hand for the time being. The sun blistered through the room, the autumn days settling in subtly. Leaves fell outside of the window, scorching temperatures dipping into lightly cold winds.  
  
They ate together in a comfortable silence, Chris next to Eddie, Dean guarding the door, vigilant and loyal to protect his only friends. Steel blue eyes read over the now recognizable words from the torn book, absentmindedly chewing on a piece of sausage. Dean turned the page.  
  
Geese flapped outside the window and in the morning light, squawking in their wake, heading towards their salvation somewhere south, away from the impending winter in the months to come. Winds blew, the sun rose over the horizon, the lively green hills in the distance.  
  
Then, various cars rested in the parking lot in front of the hospital. And as the people stared upwards, towards the window, pleading and whispering and contemplating, they prayed.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "It's amazing."  
  
Chris eyed Dwayne. "Hello to you, too."  
  
The actor shook his head. "Look outside the window."  
  
Eyeing the dark colored man warily, he followed, strolling idly over towards the other's side and watching the autumn scenery come to play. "What about it?"  
  
A stunning, charming smile. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"  
  
Ice blue eyes narrowing, lurking towards the side. "What's gotten into you? I'd not expect you to appreciate such things like this."  
  
He sighed. "Maybe I've been here too long."  
  
"Well, have long have you been here?"  
  
"About a year." Dwayne moved his mocha eyes, clashing with Chris' ice blue ones.  
  
Chris snorted and turned his attention to the little gathering of fans outside the window, resting peacefully in the parking lot. "I know what you're thinking."  
  
"You woke up."  
  
"Yeah, I did."  
  
Dwayne smirked. "Well, I'll be damned."  
  
"People can wake up, Dwayne," he muttered, closing his eyes thoughtfully. "You just gotta believe that they can."  
  
"But you can't really believe in something that might not come true," the other retorted, moving his attention to the white clouds hanging in the sky blue blanket above.   
  
"What you're talking about is faith," Chris commented.  
  
"Yeah. Faith."  
  
They stayed silent, as the people below them woke up, stretched and yawned, opening up their cars and preparing their breakfast, cooking in the parking lot. Their feet crunched on the leaf-stained pavement, chilly autumn winds engulfing them.   
  
Dwayne walked away, picking up a stray apple in the cafeteria, and heading to the double-doors. Ice blue eyes continued to keep its fixation on the sight below, yet they moved, watching the reflection of the man in the mirror. He smiled.  
  
"Are you losing faith that Steve won't make it?"  
  
Dwayne stopped in his tracks. Chris' smile broadened.  
  
No response from the actor but the sounds of teeth crushing a piece of the apple.  
  
Chris rose his head, eyes fixated upon the reflecting image of Dwyane. "Well?"  
  
Dwayne swallowed the apple loudly. "What do you think?"  
  
His eyes sparked. "I think that you are."  
  
Mocha brown shut tightly. "Maybe." He sighed, his fingertips tracing the smooth skin of the apple. "I don't know anymore."  
  
Ice blue closed. "They'll make it. Both Steve and Eddie."  
  
A snort. "Now that is bullshit."  
  
"Why?"  
  
A bite into the apple. "Only one of them is gonna make it out of this chaotic Garden of Eden."  
  
"How do you know that? You just gotta stop being pessimistic, man. You gotta keep the faith."  
  
Dwayne threw away the remains of the apple into a nearby trash can. "But faith can only go so far, Chris," he muttered, pushing through the swinging double doors.  
  
Chris stayed in the cafeteria, and contemplated. The sun moved across his face, while the trees rocked back and forth. He picked up his own apple, walking back to the room.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Hey."  
  
Dean observed the doctors entering the hospital room, performing their monthly check-up on the comatose man, his best friend, trapped within. He smiled as the newcomer seemed to appear next to him, like a friendly ghost, or a haunting phantom.  
  
"Hi."  
  
"Their doing that shit again."  
  
He nodded his head. "Yup."  
  
A snerk. "He'll be fine. He'll wake up when he wants to. When he feels like it."  
  
"If Eddie felt like waking up, he would've done so by now."  
  
"Still. He's gonna wake up."  
  
"And what about... ?"  
  
A shrug, the moving of clothing, the sound of nonchalance. "I don't know."  
  
Dean sighed. "Don't tell me you're giving up hope, too, like Dwayne did."  
  
"Dwayne is Dwayne, and Mick is Mick, like Dean is Dean. We aren't alike, and we can't be."  
  
"But how long has it been?"  
  
Mick watched as the doctors took Eddie's blood pressure. "You know how long."  
  
Dean gazed at the worried, frazzled form of Chris Benoit. "Yeah. That was a stupid question."  
  
The other man smiled gently. "Guess so."  
  
Doctors sadly shook their heads, eyes downcast to the floor, filing out of the room while one lingered behind, walking towards Chris and whispering into his ear the same, cliched news. Ice blue eyes softened, yet stayed vigilant, hopeful, as he nodded his head and sadly smiled.  
  
The doctor in his robotic, uniformed white lab coat scurried out of the room, flashing down the hallway. Mick involuntarily opened his mouth, reaching outwards to the fleeing doctor. His fingers retracted once his mind caught up with his passionate, impulsive actions. He, too, sadly smiled, and watched as Dean walked into Eddie's hospital room.  
  
Chris gazed at Mick for a second, brown clashing with blue, and they nodded to each other. The Canadian's hand entwined with Eddie's, and Mick's smile grew, turning around and walking down the hallway to his benevolent, meretricious darkness.  
  
Dean observed the intense moment, and said nothing. He sat in his comfortably chair on the side of the door, picked up his book, and read quietly.   
  
"Nothing out of the ordinary," he commented.  
  
Chris sat in his own chair, fingers rubbing over Eddie's cold knuckles absentmindedly. "Yeah," he whispered, "just a normal, routine day."  
  
The sun dipped over the horizon. Another day had come and gone.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> Dean's eyes widened, his mouth fell, and he blinked, once. "... What the fuck?!"  
  
Shawn Michaels scrunched up his nose, yawning as he sat up on the cold bench on the opposite side of the hallway, stretching and cracking his neck. He smiled, as if nothing was wrong in the world, and waved languidly to Dean. "Good morning to you, too."  
  
He blinked again. "... right."  
  
The blond-haired Texan beamed. "You're probably wondering why we're here."  
  
"Um, no shit?" Dean asked, still perplexed at the sleeping forms of wrestlers in the hallway, some sitting next to each other against the wall on the floor, others huddled together in a group, surrounded by a blanket or two. Dean shook his head. "How many of you guys are here?"  
  
"Including me?" Shawn asked, grinning. "Probably about twenty or so of us."  
  
Dean shook his head again. "Shit."  
  
"What, disappointed?"  
  
"You kidding?!" Dean yelled at Shawn, grinning as well. "I'm glad that you guys came back! Why did you, anyways?"  
  
"Well," Shawn explained, cracking his neck again while stretching out his arms, "word got out that Eddie was alive, so we all piled together and came back, and sure enough, we found out the truth."  
  
Dean leaned against the doorway, crossing his arms and grinning. "Yup," he said, "he ain't dead."  
  
Awe gleamed in Shawn's eyes. "He's a survivor."  
  
Dean nodded his head, agreeing wholeheartedly. "You bet your ass he is."  
  
Inside the room, Chris slept soundly, unaware of the people waiting outside in the hallway, his hand instinctively around Eddie's, a tradition he accustomed to. A lazy smile overlapped his features, mumbling something incoherent in his sleep as his head turned on the chair.  
  
Sunlight bounced into the rooms and the leaves left the trees for naked, resting upon the unmoving steel cars below, decorating their roofs and trunks and hoods haphazardly. Soon, as the sun rose higher in the distance, more cars piled in, stopping and parking and unmoving as the others.  
  
Fans walked out, stared up to the window, and they prayed as well.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> Weeks past, autumn took its course, blowing down the leaves in its wake, falling listlessly from the trees, abandoning its former prisoners and finding home on the sweet pavement, the cold concrete below, a world never found beforehand, only unmarked territory seen from the Heaven's below. They littered the ground, the cars, the hospital, everything that they saw from their hanging jail above; yet, now they dominated it all, absolutely every little sight they wished beforehand, now theirs to keep.  
  
A sliding window opened noiselessly, its quietness befitting the soundless landscape and peaceful, holy surroundings. The battered, fatigued figure staggered through the doorway, walking up towards the steel balcony and leaned on its dilapidated, crumbling railing, the rough, grimy texture rusting into his fingernails. He leaned forward on it with crossed arms, the creaking sound echoing in the pitch black twilight. His black book resting in his left hand mixed with the darkness, the bolded white letters standing out like the stars twinkling above.  
  
Pensive brown eyes lifted to the night, reflecting the powerful aura around the stars. Reminiscing about the past, a memory flashed before his mind, losing itself in the recesses of tears, joy, and happiness. He released a choked laugh, choking on the bitterness of the irony, and he gazed at the book in his left arm. This sudden urge to throw it over the railing and onto the ground below stirred him, motivated him; instead, he opened it up, reading over the last page he stopped on.  
  
_He tapped very carefully very slowly to show her that he had a method in what he was doing. Just as she had repeated the design of the letter M on his chest over and over again so he now tapped his distress signal back to her. But slowly . . . so slowly. Dot dot dot dot dot dot dot dot. S O S. H e l p. Over and over again he repeated it. Once in a while he would stop at the completion of the signal. That was his question mark just as her pauses had been question marks. He would stop and try to make all that was visible of him -- his hair and half of his forehead above the mask -- take on an air of expectancy. Then when he received no sign from her he would do it again. And all the while he tapped he was conscious of her hear him watching and thinking._  
  
"Whatcha reading?"  
  
Startled, Mick nearly dropped the book involuntarily over the railing, catching it before doing so. He breathed a sigh of relief, unintentionally, and laughed sharply, a crooked smile on his face. "Some anti-war book."  
  
"Really?" The man stood next to him, leaning on the fragmented, broken railing, the creaking sound returning to the nightfall's silent air. "What's it called?"  
  
Mick's eyes fell upon the text again. "Johnny Got His Gun."  
  
Ice blue eyes stared at him blankly. "Never heard of it. Is it good?"  
  
Another sharp laugh. "If you like getting grossed out."  
  
"Is it like Catch-22?"  
  
He shrugged. "A little bit, I guess. I'm not sure. Not that much of a fan of Heller's work."  
  
Chris nodded, looking out towards the hills where the moonlight cascaded over it. "Same here. Not much for the war-types myself."  
  
"How did you know about Catch-22 then?"  
  
"Dean's reading it."  
  
Mick rose an eyebrow. "Oh?"  
  
He nodded his head again. "Yeah. I don't know why, but I guess it's because he's always been a sucker for war novels. Got an infactuation with 'em, I guess."  
  
"Never figured him as the war-loving type."  
  
Chris shook his head, the railing groaning beneath him. "See, I don't think he likes reading _about_ the gruesome terrors of war, but he likes the _messages_ the author says about it."   
  
He refused to roll his eyes. "All war-time novelists echo off each other. War's stupid, war's unnecessary, war's a piece of crap made by humanity that we just don't need."  
  
The railing creaked as Benoit moved to the right. "They may echo the same themes, but their messages have a distinctness, contrasting them from others."  
  
"They tie into one another though. You must agree with that," Mick commented, focused on the black text within his hands.  
  
"Well, you've read Catch-22, right?" Chris asked, leaning on the railing in the same position Mick currently stood in, his eyes narrowed. "What similarities can you see in them?"  
  
An all-knowing, wise smile appeared. "Yossarian saw the faults of war, and so did Joe. War brought nothing but death, destruction, and lamentation. A lot of sorrow, blood, and ultimately, thousands of corpses rotting somewhere in a foreign place away from their homeland, their families, their former havens. It's a common motif among war novelists."  
  
Chris smirked. "But there is a difference, isn't there?"  
  
Mick's eyes wandered to the man next to him, and he shook his head, smiling. "When are you _ever_ wrong, Chris?"  
  
"Don't know, and I really wouldn't like to know," he responded, laughing gently. He stretched a bit, leaning back from the railing and slamming himself against it again like a tired little kid refusing to fall to the Sandman's sleeping powder. "So, what's the difference?"  
  
He sighed, raising his eyebrows and a helpless gaze melted over his brown eyes. "Yossarian found out the inevitability of death, how the death of his friend Snowden saw that man is garbage, and how precious life really was, similar to what happened to Joe. But the difference?" He laughed gently, eyes staring to the concrete ground below. "Yossarian was alive when he found out. Joe had to become... something else."  
  
"Something... else?" Chris questioned, perplexed and bewildered.  
  
He nodded. "Just... not living, not dying, just existing. Just breathing somewhere in his darkness, unable to do anything, lost and trapped within himself, his mind, his body, everything, and he could only think, and then it hit him. But it was too late, too late to get out of bed and do something about it, because he was nothing now. Nothing but a pile of rotting, festering flesh, a man that should have died, but didn't. And it kills him, but he can't be killed, and it kills him more."  
  
Chris stood next to Mick, breathless.  
  
Mick laughed. "Yeah. Kinda powerful, isn't it?"  
  
The Canadian blinked twice. "I'll say. Puts Yossarian's situation below what that Joe guy went through, huh?"  
  
He shrugged. "I guess. After all, there are some similarities between the two of them. They just received different fates, that's it."  
  
A silence. Mick turned the page, eyes engrossed in the words confined. Chris turned his head down, fingers picking away at the rust and the dirt and the grime. He bit his lower lip.  
  
"How's Steve?"  
  
His hand tightened around the book. "How's Eddie?"  
  
His fingernail ceased, a piece of green, oily rust crusted onto the tip of his skin. "You should know."  
  
"Then you should know too."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"Sorry isn't gonna cut it."  
  
"Then I apologize."  
  
"Same thing."  
  
"I didn't mean to talk about it..."  
  
"You don't care."  
  
His fingernail released the imprisoned rust beneath, flicking it to the ground. "Excuse me?"  
  
His free hand turned the page, his back to the other man while still leaning on the rickety railing. "You don't care."  
  
"I do."  
  
"About Eddie."  
  
"And Steve too."  
  
"Bullshit."  
  
Dumbstruck and mystified, his ice blue eyes stared ahead, stunned completely. "What do you mean? Of course I care."  
  
"And like I said-- that's a piece of bullshit."  
  
"How?"  
  
Mick laughed, his stomach and back spasming into fits. "Now _that's_ a question that confuses _me_."  
  
"You're making no sense."  
  
"And you are being a contradiction."  
  
"I'm just being truthful."  
  
"You're telling lies."  
  
Deep in Chris' heart, the word struck him, down to the core, slashing it apart and ripping it into two. His breath caught in his throat. "I'm serious," he hissed aloud.  
  
Mick continued to read. "When was the last time you spoke to him?"  
  
Silence.  
  
"Well?"  
  
Quiet.  
  
"You haven't."  
  
Ice blue eyes glared. "Well, when did _you_ last speak with _Eddie_?"  
  
"He can't speak," he muttered, attempting to concentrate on the novel, "he's in a coma."  
  
"And neither can Steve. He's--"  
  
"Alive." Mick turned the page.  
  
The strong viciousness within that single word threw Chris off, pulling back from the railing, his hands clutching around the decaying metal pole. "Mick?" he asked skeptically, worriedly.  
  
His free hand latched around the railing as well, fingers digging into the rotten steel. "He's alive."  
  
Chris' eyes blurred and shimmered, concern filling the sharp ice in the blue. "Mick... you're delus--"  
  
"NO." His hand burned into the metal, knuckles instantly turning white. "He's alive."  
  
He simply shook his head. "You're wrong. He's dead."  
  
Mick lifted his head, tresses of his hair falling back, and his blanched hand released the weak steel neck. "So is Eddie."  
  
Chris suffocated.   
  
The wind rustled through the trees, branches snapping gently, leaves twirling towards the ground rapidly, the moon a silent observer, and its light gasping, hiding itself within the murky clouds.  
  
Mick turned the page.   
  
"Bastard."  
  
Stoically ignoring the comment, Mick read on.  
  
Chris shook his head. "You're such a bastard."  
  
"No," Mick corrected firmly, "I'm a writer."  
  
"You're a fucking bastard."  
  
"Writers have to be sharp and truthful, like a double-edged sword. Not only must we speak harshly on paper, but when we speak to others, and even when we approach things in life. We have to speak the truth, the reality of the matter."  
  
Ice blue eyes chilled, freezing over, glaring violently. "So you're saying the reality of the matter is that Steve _and_ Eddie are dead."  
  
Mick smiled. "Yes."  
  
"You're wrong," Chris calmly said, releasing his grip on the battered railing. "I know that Eddie's going to make it, because for three years and a few months now, I've had faith in him, hope that he's gonna make it."  
  
"That's an idealists dream. I'm a realist."  
  
"Some idealists make in the world."  
  
"Not many."  
  
"I will. Eddie will."  
  
"Another dream."  
  
"Dreams can come true."  
  
"Now that, Chris, is childish."  
  
"Fuck you."  
  
He smirked and turned the page. "And that is just vulgar and rude."  
  
Chris' eyes widened. "... you're like Vince. Arrogant, crazy, stubborn... and proud. Very, very proud."  
  
Mick's eyes hardened. "No. I'm not Vince."  
  
"Of course not," Chris muttered, turning and walking away, his own eyes hardened and resentful. "You're worse."  
  
"You wanna hear something worse than that?!" Mick yelled, snapping around and glaring viciously at Chris. "Something worse than the characterization of a person's self-absorbed ideas and concepts of immortality?!"  
  
"Nothing can be worse than another human being losing faith in someone they considered a friend!" Chris shouted back, his temper flaring as his cheeks turned hot and red, his hands balling up into fists.  
  
"Cut the friendship crap, Chris," Mick condescended, almost ripping his book as he turned to a page that he marked previously with a red pen. "In here? In this book? There's something that stood out to me, spoke to me about how fucked up this world that we live in is. How fucked humanity is. How fucked everything is!"  
  
"Then just goddamn say it all ready!" Chris yelled, stepping forward and preventing himself from punching Mick in the face.  
  
As if someone splashed cold water onto his form, Mick instantly calmed down, a wise, mysterious aura around him as he read word for word from the text. "You can always hear the people who are willing to sacrifice somebody else's life. They're plenty loud and they talk all the time. You can find them in churches and schools and newspapers and legislatures and congress. That's their business. They sound wonderful. Death before dishonor. This ground sanctified by blood. These men who died so gloriously. They shall not have died in vain. Our noble dead.  
  
"Hmmmm," Mick narrated, lifting his eyes from the text to stare blatantly into Chris' ice blue daggers, "but what do the dead say?"  
  
Chris idly stared back. "I don't know. No one knows what the dead says. It's impossible."  
  
Mick smirked, and continued to read. "Did anybody ever come back from the dead any single one of the millions who got killed did any one of them ever come back and say by god I'm glad I'm dead because death is always better than dishonor? Did they say I'm glad I died to make the world safe for democracy? Did they say I like death better than losing liberty? Did any of them ever say it's good to think I got my guts blown out for the honor of my country? Did any of them ever say look at me I'm dead but I died for decency and that's better than being alive? Did any of them ever say here I am and I've been rotting for two years in a foreign grave but it's wonderful to die for your native land? Did any of them say hurray I died for womanhood and I'm happy see how I sing even though my mouth is choked with worms?  
  
"Nobody but the dead know whether all these things people talk about are worth dying for or not. And the dead can't talk. So the words about noble deaths and sacred blood and honor and such are all put into dead lips by grave robbers and fakes who have no right to speak for the dead. If a man says death before dishonor he is either a fool or a liar because he doesn't know what death is. He isn't able to judge. He only knows about living. He doesn't know anything about dying. If he is a fool and believes in death before dishonor let him go ahead and die. But all the little guys who are too busy to fight should be left alone. And all the guys who say death before dishonor is pure bull the important thing is life before death they should be left alone too. Because the guys who say life isn't worth living without some principle so important you're willing to die for it they are all nuts. And the guys who say you'll see there'll come a time you can't escape you're going to have to fight and die because it'll mean your very life why they are also nuts. They are talking like fools. They are saying that two and two make nothing. They are saying that a man will have to die in order to protect his life. If you agree to fight you agree to die. Now if you die to protect your life you aren't alive anyhow so how is there any sense in a thing like that? A man doesn't say I will starve myself to death to keep from starving. He doesn't say I will spend all my money in order to save my money. He doesn't say I will burn my house down in order to keep it from burning. Why then should he be willing to die for the privilege of living? There ought to be at least as much common sense about living and dying as there is about going to the grocery store and buying a loaf of bread.  
  
"And all the guys who died all the five million or seven million or ten million who went out and died to make the world safe for democracy to make the world safe for words without meaning how did they feel about it just before they died? How did they feel as they watched their blood pump out into the mud? How did they feel when the gas hit their lungs and began eating them all away? How did they feel as they lay crazed in hospitals and looked death straight in the face and saw him come and take them? If the thing they were fighting for was important enough to die for then it was also important enough for them to be thinking about it in the last minutes of their lives. That stood to reason. Life is awfully important so if you've given it away you'd ought to think with all your mind in the last moments of your life about the thing you traded it for. So did all those kids die thinking of democracy and freedom and liberty and honor and the safety of the home and the stars and stripes forever?"  
  
Chris, although kept his icy glare, shook his head, refusing to show he was moved.  
  
Mick nodded. "You're goddamn right they didn't.  
  
"They died crying in their minds like little babies. They forgot the thing they were fighting for the things they were dying for. They thought about things a man can understand. They died yearning for the face of a friend. They died whimpering for the voice of a mother a father a wife a child. They died with their hearts sick for one more look at the place where they were born please god just one more look. They died moaning and sighing for life. They knew what was important. They knew that life was everything and they died with screams and sobs. They died with only one thought in the minds and that was I want to live I want to live I want to live."  
  
Mick closed the book slowly. "He ought to know," he muttered, walking past Chris, brushing against his shoulder purposely, and opening the sliding door. "He was the nearest thing to a dead man on earth."  
  
"You mean 'is,' " Chris whispered, unable to look back.  
  
Brown eyes softened. "I wasn't talking about Eddie."  
  
He slid open the door, and closed it behind him.  
  
Chris stayed on the balcony, near the rusted metal railing until the moon succumbed to slumber, and the sun rose over the grassy hills in the distance.  
  
The words continued to haunt him.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "You okay?"  
  
Chris blinked, diverting his attention away from the comatose form of his best friend to Dean standing in the middle of the doorway, a fresh tray of eggs, ham and bacon on a green tray. He weakly smiled. "Yeah, I'm fine."  
  
Worry written on his face, Dean walked forward, placing the tray on the table next to Chris' chair and Eddie's hospital bed. Two weeks passed since Chris had this alleged conversation with Mick. More friends slept outside of the room while even more fans stood outside in the parking lot, praying and creating shrines and cards for their friend.   
  
Eddie's family bunked into the room a week ago, enraged at the thought that the public lied about the death of their son, yet enamored with joy and hope. Eddie wasn't dead. Dean smiled as he stepped around the cot in front of Eddie's bed, where his wife Vickie and their two children slept peacefully, content smiles on their faces. In the corner of the room were Eddie's brothers, sleeping on separate cots. Yet, on the opposite side of Eddie's bed sat the sleeping form of Eddies' mother, holding onto her son's other hand.  
  
However, ever since then, Chris spaced out more often, staring at Eddie with a pleading gaze in his ice blue eyes.   
  
Anger filled Dean, fueling and burning constantly as each day passed by. What happened up on the balcony? Why did Chris follow Mick? What did they speak about?  
  
Chris never said a word about it, and Dean had a feeling he wouldn't, even if he asked. He never pressed the subject.  
  
"Here," Dean whispered gently, patting Chris' shoulder, "dig in while its hot."  
  
The other man nodded, appreciating Dean's hospitality with his smile on his face. He picked up the fork, eating slowly, taking his time to chew thoughtfully.   
  
Dean sighed, moving to his side of the room and pulled out his book again. He wouldn't press the subject on, even though he desired to. Opening his book, he began to read, completely jaded with the story by now.  
  
And as the sun rose over the hills yet again, Mick stared out the window with tears shinning in his eyes. The book rested on the floor in front of his feet, the last page opened for the light to touch.  
  
Only the shadows embraced it.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> I don't believe in God. I'm not a religious person.  
  
Eddie believed in you, and now look at where he is.   
  
Why could you do that to such a good man?  
  
He overcame his demons, accomplished the impossible, gained fame and fortune and his family. He laughed and cracked jokes and just... just was apart of the guys in the back. We all love him, and we don't want to see him waste away like this.  
  
I don't want to see him waste away. He's too good of a soul.  
  
So why did you do that?  
  
Why didn't you stop him from doing that stupid act three years ago?  
  
He tried to do the impossible again, but he couldn't do it. His faith couldn't help him, his belief in you couldn't help him.  
  
Where were you?  
  
... where was I?  
  
He's dying, God. He's dying. I can feel it. I don't want to believe it, but he is dying.   
  
Don't make him die. Don't take him away. Why do you take the good people away? We _need_ them, God, we need them here on Earth to protect us, to help us, to be with us.   
  
Too many people in the world deserve to die.   
  
But why did you choose Eddie? Dear God, why him? He did do horrible things in his past, but he reconciled for it, he asked for redemption, and we accepted his plea.  
  
Did you? Did you accept his plea?  
  
I don't think you did.  
  
I... I don't pray. I don't like to pray, so don't consider this a prayer. Ignore the fact that I'm bending on my knees in front Eddie's bed, tears streaming down my cheeks and I'm mumbling your name over and over again.  
  
Ignore it.  
  
Just consider this a... a little question.  
  
Will you...  
  
Will you please help him?  
  
Will you please wake Eddie up?  
  
Out of all the people in the world who need you right now, he does. Eddie needs you. The Bible says that you help others, you are a righteous, generous God. So dammit, do it. Fulfill what your followers wrote down aeons ago.  
  
Eddie helped himself. Now you have to help him.  
  
Wake him up. Get him out of here.   
  
If not for his sake... then for his family, his friends, his fans, Dean... me.   
  
For the sake of us, wake our Eddie up.  
  
Please, God.  
  
Listen to me.  
  
_Please_.  
  
Are you out there? Are you listening to me? Will you listen to me? Are you simply ignoring me? Don't turn away from my call. Please, God, listen to me. Please please please don't go away don't turn away just stay and help and do what you need to do to get Eddie out of here and out of that forsaken bed.  
  
Do you see the faith in my eyes? Do you?  
  
I refuse to listen to the lies, those discouraging lies the others tell me.  
  
He won't make it, he's dead, give up.  
  
No.  
  
I won't give up.  
  
So, you won't either. I refuse to believe that you've given up on Eddie. Help him now. Please help him.  
  
I have faith in my cries, my questions... my hope, all to you. Please, listen to me. Please, God, please.  
  
Don't break that promise you made between humanity and yourself. Don't break the covenant.   
  
Don't... don't betray me. Don't betray Eddie.  
  
Don't betray us.  
  
Please, don't.  
  
Because to be honest?  
  
I'd never believe in you again. I'm going out on a limb and just believing a little bit in you-- fuck, I'm pouring out to you whatever hope and faith I have left into thinking Eddie will live again.  
  
Please, God, please listen to me.  
  
See the faith in my eyes, my cries.  
  
Don't break the promise, don't betray us.  
  
Don't let that healing hand of yours, of your son, the Son of God, the Lamb, be held back by some deepened nail.  
  
Because I won't follow you again.  
  
I won't follow a God that failed.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> It's so dark.  
  
What happened... what happened to me?  
  
Where am I? What's going on?  
  
It's... I don't remember. Oh my God, I don't remember. Someone help me, get me out of here, I don't want to feel this pain anymore, please, get me out.  
  
A... a light?  
  
Is that a light?  
  
I don't know if it is or not.  
  
But it's so warm.  
  
It has to be a light.  
  
I have to walk forward. I have to get up. I have to get out of here.  
  
A hand?  
  
Are you going to help me?  
  
Why?  
  
Are you... do you mean it? Are you going to turn on me?  
  
... I just--  
  
Okay.  
  
The hand is warm, like the light.  
  
And I can see someone in the distance, at the end of the tunnel, the end of the soothing light... someone familiar, someone I know, someone deep inside my heart whom has been with me since the beginning.  
  
A pair of ice blue eyes meet me, sparkling like hopeful sapphires.  
  
The hand lets go of me and it vanishes, like it was never there in the first place, a phantom, a ghost, a spirit. A guiding spirit.  
  
I pull out of the darkness, and the light engulfs it all.  
  
I can see no more.  
  
But I smile.  
  
And I _wake up_.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Chris?"  
  
He stirred in his sleep, still clutching his best friend's limp hand, mumbling something and turning his head on the chair, determined to stay in his dream-world.  
  
"Chris..."  
  
The voice.  
  
It was too familiar. An old sound he hadn't heard since the dawn of time, but he knew it. He knew that accent, that secret laugh hidden in the depths of that tone.  
  
It was a dream. It had to be. No way in hell could it b--  
  
"Chris, wake up."  
  
Oh God.  
  
That voice.  
  
His eyes snapped open and locked onto the form of his best friend.  
  
Eddie Guerrero smiled weakly, his body covered in the white sheets of the three-year-old hospital bed, his head prompted up with fluffy soft pillows, his brown eyes glistening with life, hope, and unshed tears.  
  
Chris felt himself sit up, although he didn't feel attached to his body anymore. It was like he stepped away from his body, to observe on the sidelines if this was true or dream. Was it a dream? Maybe it was.  
  
Oh God. He hoped it wasn't a dream. After all the torture and pain he went through, that he saw Eddie endure, he couldn't take it anymore. It had to be real. He had too much hope for his own good.  
  
Eddie had to be awake. He just had to be.  
  
And if he wasn't... if this was a dream--  
  
He squeezed the hand he held for three years.   
  
"Eddie?" he choked.  
  
And after three years of waiting for that limp hand to respond, Eddie Guerrero squeezed back, just as tightly.  
  
Tears fell. "Hola."  
  
As if jolted with a shock of electricity, Chris jumped out of his chair and wrapped his arms around Eddie, burying his face right into his neck and sobbing uncontrollably. His head shook back and forth, tears of joy and happiness streaming down his cheeks.   
  
Weakly, Eddie lifted his own hands, wrapping them around Chris' back, crying as well. Soon, his mother on the other side of the bed awoke abruptly, feeling her son's hand removed from her clutch. However, when she saw the sight of her and her son's best friend embracing, she yelled his name in delight, shock, and happiness.  
  
The whole room awoke in laughter, shock and relief, everyone rushing over to the hospital bed and embracing the now-awake Latino, kissing him, hugging him, showing their undeniable devotion and affection. Dean, who awoke when he heard Eddie's mother scream his name, ran out into the hallways, shouting and spread the good news to everyone.  
  
Outside in the parking lot, the fans cheered wildly, throwing flowers, prayer books, various items into the air, yelling in Spanish, Hebrew, Italian, French, English, any language possible, celebrating the greatest miracle in the world. Eddie Guerrero finally woke up from his three-year coma, his mind still intact.  
  
Friends flooded into the hospital room, some fans running into it to greet their fallen hero. Eddie's family cried and praised the Lord, kissing him and holding him close. Chris tried to move away to give them privacy, yet Eddie's grip on him kept him from moving.   
  
"Hey, vato," he jokingly whispered, "you're apart of the family. You're not going anywhere."  
  
Chris smiled, laughing gently. "Gracias, amigo."  
  
Eddie grinned from ear to ear. "De nada."  
  
Dean watched on near the door, vigilant as ever, tears threatening to fall down his eyes. He permitted them to release, trickling down his cheeks, and wiping them off just as quickly.   
  
Chris saw Dean and waved to him. "Hey," he shouted, "you're apart of the family too!"  
  
Dean smiled softly and walked over, the swarm of people parting for him and closing together as soon as he passed through.  
  
Sunlight glistened through the window, laughter and joy filled the air, and a new autumn day settled in.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> Mick Foley watched the celebration unfurl as he stood in the doorway on the dark side of the hallway.  
  
And in that instant, whatever what was left of him -- his heart, his mind, his hopes, his dreams, his only wish -- shattered.  
  
He closed the door and laughed.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Excuse me?"  
  
The receptionist looked up from her computer to see a good-looking hazel-brown eyed man staring at her with an aura of mystery, sorrow and absolute sex. She couldn't help but shiver underneath his powerful gaze. "Yes?"  
  
He smiled gently. "Can you tell me where Steve Austin is?"  
  
She rose her eyebrows. "Steve Austin?" Her green eyes warily sparkled. "Are you..." Her eyes wandered around, and she leaned forward towards the man. "You sure you want to see him? Not anyone else?"  
  
He narrowed his eyes.   
  
The receptionist instantly turned her attention back to the computer, typing rapidly down the name and searching frantically for the said man's room.   
  
She sighed. "Room 9078, sixth floor. It'll be the one down the hallway where there's no windows at all."  
  
Raven nodded his head. "Thank you."  
  
And as he walked down to the elevator, the receptionist couldn't help but shudder again -- not at the man, but to the patient he was going to actually visit.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "You ready to get out of bed, you lazy-ass?"  
  
Eddie snorted, eating his ice cream happily. "Hell no, vato!"  
  
Chris shook his head, sitting on the edge of Eddie's bed while the Latino ate the gigantic bowl of ice cream in his lap. "You're such a child."  
  
"Hey, callate and let me eat my sweets, homes!" Eddie said with a mouth full of chocolate ice cream, grinning from ear to ear.   
  
Chris shook his head, throwing his hands in the air. "Whatever."  
  
Dean watched on the sidelines of the bed, the book placed next to his chair. "Let me have some of that, Eddie."  
  
"No way!" Eddie said, pulling his bowl closer to him and covering the top with his ice-cream stained hand, "it's all mine! None for you!"  
  
"Stingy!"  
  
"So what? You know me!" Eddie shouted back, sticking his tongue out. "I'm selfish, so cope."  
  
Dean chuckled as well, shaking his head like Chris did previously. "Man, it's good to have you back. Vince says once you're ready, you have a job open back at the company."  
  
Eddie nodded, eating more of his ice cream. "That's good. I can't wait to get back in the ring."  
  
"And the fans are more than ready to see you," Chris commented, grinning with relief and joy in his eyes. "All the guys can't wait to see you back, and I'm sure you're family is dying to see you out of the hospital soon."  
  
"Just three more days," Dean said, leaning over with his index finger to take a taste of Eddie's chocolate ice cream.  
  
"And I'm out of here and back in the real world," Eddie said, slapping away Dean's hand. "No ice cream for you!"  
  
Dean pouted and grumbled underneath his breath, "Meanie."  
  
Eddie simply beamed, while Chris chuckled.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> Raven stared at the man in the wheelchair. "This... this is insane."  
  
Mick solemnly nodded, staring at the book. "I know."  
  
He gulped gently, swallowing some substance down. A sharp prick hit his eyes. "Oh God."  
  
Brown eyes glanced at shocked, frightened hazel ones. "You're not like the rest of them."  
  
Slowly walking forward, Raven rested a hand on the cold, motionless face, tracing its contours. "The eyes are not here... there are no eyes here in this valley of dying stars, in this hollow valley, this broken jaw of our lost kingdoms."  
  
A smirk. "T.S Eliot's The Hollow Men." A chuckle. "How appropriate."  
  
Raven shook his head. "Oh G-God."  
  
"You can see it, can you?"  
  
Raven nodded.  
  
Mick closed his eyes. "Through him, you can see it." He looked out the window, over the hills in the horizon. "This is how the world ends, not with a bang..."  
  
A quivered sigh, and Raven released his tears. "But with a whimper."
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Scott?" Chris asked, a faint smile on his face.  
  
Startled as hell, Raven turned around, his kilt twirling and his hand jumping away from the doorknob of the room as if it burned his hand, it's mark etched into his skin permanently. His eyes wide and mouth agape, he found no words registering in his frozen mind.  
  
Chris' smile brightened as he walked forward. "Hey, don't worry," he assured, "it's just me." He eyed the room warily and snapped his attention back to Raven. "What were you doing in there?"  
  
Somehow composing himself, Raven choked out, "... visiting a friend."  
  
"That's good!" Chris cheerily answered. "Y'know, he really hasn't gotten a lot of visitors, or any visitors, so I'm glad you went to see him."  
  
"Have you?" Raven asked softly.  
  
Chris blinked. "Excuse me?"  
  
Raven blinked as well, looking accusingly, bitterly at the Canadian. "Have you visited him too?"  
  
"Well, no, not really," Chris admitted casually, shrugging his shoulders. "I've been too busy with Eddie. But even you know that he has a worse condition than Steve does." He smiled. "I just couldn't bear leaving his side for even the slightest second. He's my best friend and it was important to me to stay by his side."  
  
Raven snorted. He leaned up against the wall, closed his eyes and tilted his head down.  
  
Chris glared at him. "Scott--"   
  
"I don't see how he can go on like this," Raven whispered under his breath. "The... the doctors said that he would never know what has happened to him. But just by looking at him..." Raven trailed off and visibly shivered, teeth chattering, head shaking, eyes tightly shut.   
  
Benoit strangely looked at him, yet said nothing.  
  
Raven sighed. "Those fucking doctors are wrong. They just said that to reassure themselves. They won't admit the truth. They're afraid to." He opened his eyes into small slits and kept his gaze downcast, fixated upon the floor. "They locked him up in this place like a fucking wild animal, a crazy man, but he isn't crazy, he just isn't normal anymore.  
  
"You probably haven't seen him yet. I can tell. You don't have to tell me. But you should. Before you go and have that fucking 'happily ever after' now that Eddie's awake, I think it's high time that YOU woke up and saw the truth, the real fucking truth. Don't delude yourself, idiot. Delusion is the greatest form of dreams. It's a disguise, a foul illusion, ready to take away what you perceive as real and give you nothing but lies.  
  
"You need to see him. You don't even have to talk to him." He chuckled bitterly. "Fuck, it's like I'm implying that he's a fucking circus freak." He shook his head, sighing. "Fuck. Just... you just have to. It's like he's a god, or a demon, or a fallen angel, or some kind of living folklore or myth, a forbidden Great Old One like Cthulhu or Tsathoggua or Nyarlathotep, that rose from somewhere beneath the sea, R'lyeh, Egypt, wandering the world and that world happens to be in the room beyond that door. Or something like that. I don't even know anymore.  
  
"I mean, just looking at him, in those eyes... I could tell. Anyone could tell. You could tell. It's just... just there. Just THERE. And you can't ignore it. You can ignore that he exists, that he isn't there. You can turn everything away and just simply pretend that he never existed, never was there, just like everyone else did."   
  
A sinister, foul, cold-hearted smirk crawled upon Raven's face. "Just imagine Chris, all those people, a whole world filled with bumbling, helpless, self-centered idiots, talking to one another, doing whatever the fuck they do in the world, and they go to the carnival, y'know, spoil themselves, enjoy in the misery of others, laugh at their deformities and defects and mishaps. And they see this sign -- the Ultimate Basket Case -- and think, "Well, let's see what this is about. Let's go get our food and our sodas and let's go make fun of this idiot." And they see him, see him just once, only once, and then they ignore him just as quickly. They automatically, instinctively consider him a nightmare, a dream, a figment of their imagination -- "Who was that guy?" "Fuck if I know."   
  
"But once you see him, you can't ignore it, not anymore. But the world forgot about him, every last one of them, because they didn't want that. They didn't want what was coming to them." He snerked. "For idiots, they sure know how to cover their backsides. They didn't want that face to haunt them for the rest of their lives, to have the guilt on their shoulders and hearts, to have their minds shattered and souls cracked -- they wanted none of it. They didn't want to see and understand and actually comply to the faults of humanity. And it's pretty simple why they didn't want that to happen.  
  
"If the world complied to their faults, they would have no choice but to fix it. We wouldn't have war, we wouldn't have hate crimes, no murder, no buglary, no rape, no homicide, no school shootings, nothing like that. No manifest destiny, no corrupted politics, no more nightmares, no more lies, and especially no more fear. Why would someone have to fear when they saw him? Once you saw him, you'd know the truth. You already faced the biggest fear in the world, and you'd never want to do anything wrong again because you'd know that he'd be there, waiting, in the shadows in your mind, lurking, and when you did something wrong, you'd see his face -- and you'd die more on the inside.  
  
"It's not a nice feeling to die on the inside. No one wants to know that feeling. No one at all. When you die on the inside, you don't ever want that to happen again and you'd do whatever was in your power to prevent it. Yet that's the biggest fault of humanity - we all lie. Every one of us. We live lies, and only a few are born that accept truth or are just born into it. Of course they are the ones that die first, but we don't care. Good truthful men die and the strong lying men survive. It's law, it's concrete, and it can't be broken.  
  
"But once you see him, everything a human thought was right will be disproven easily. You'll know, and you can't do a damn thing about it. You'll know, and you can't ignore it any longer. No matter what you say and do, you just can't ignore it... and you'll never be able to ignore it again."  
  
Raven shuddered at the memory, and breathed slowly. His mouth felt dry. "And do you know why?"  
  
Chris couldn't speak.  
  
"It's because he _knows_. He _knows_, Chris. He knows what happened to him, what he did, and what's going on around him. It's like he's a patient man, waiting for the world to end, waiting for time to stop, waiting for Heaven to fall and Hell to vanish and life to die and even death to die itself. But he just... just doesn't-- fuck, I can't explain it."  
  
Benoit attempted to say a word, yet found himself unable to do so.  
  
Raven sighed harshly, gritting his teeth down and running a hand through his hair, clutching onto it tightly. Slamming his head back onto the wall, he kept his gaze downcast, unable to look up. "I just can't fucking describe it," he growled. "He's like a thing that should not be."  
  
Chris only found two words. "I'm sorry."  
  
Raven snorted. " 'Sorry' isn't gonna do jackshit."  
  
His mouth agape, Chris stayed silent.  
  
A thoughtful, pensive gaze glittered across Raven's hazel eyes. "Have you ever... ever thought about being stuffed back into the womb of your mother? The feeling of hearing nothing, seeing nothing, touching nothing, embracing nothing, floating around, waiting for the day you'll return to the world, born anew, given life, a chance to merely live... just waiting. Waiting.  
  
"But guess what? It's a lie. You know that it's all a lie. While the other children are born and are given life, you stay there, waiting, waiting forever, waiting until time stops, or waiting until your own mother dies so that you can die with her. You'll never be born, never given that chance to live, never do anything at all, stuck in the womb, stuck with yourself, unable to anything about it, only to live and breath and be surrounding, floating, floating forever and ever and ever. And you just _know_.  
  
"You're a prisoner in your own mother's body." Raven bitterly swallowed an unknown spicy, horrible, disgusting bile down his throat. "... that's just _sick_."  
  
He lifted his eyes, smiling weakly. "Sorry. Just... stupid random thoughts, I guess."  
  
Benoit kept staring for a second or two until he blinked, composing himself and smiling warmly. "It's okay, Scott. Come on, I think Eddie would like to see you."  
  
Raven sadly shook his head. "Sorry, Chris, but I didn't come here for him."  
  
The Canadian blinked numbly. "Oh. Well. Um..." He forced a smile on his face, passively shrugging his shoulders. "That's okay. I'm glad someone else, y'know, came to visit... him."  
  
Raven's hazel eyes turned and focused to the window ahead, the light piercing through, intensifying the linonium tiling, the golden rays soaking into everything. He bitterly smiled. It never touched the shadow of the doorway he recently exited.  
  
An ironic gleam sparkled in his eyes, and he laughed heartily.  
  
Benoit looked at him again. "What's so funny?"  
  
Raven shook his head. "Nothing." He laughed again. "And _that's_ the reason why."  
  
With his mouth parted open, Benoit uncertainly asked, "You're laughing... at _nothing_?"  
  
Controlling his laughter to the best of his ability, Raven stuffed his hands into the pockets of his leather coat and walked down the corridor. "Nevermind," he dismissed. "Just nevermind."  
  
However, as he stood in the middle of the corridor, and the light gave him an angelic, ethereal appearance, Raven turned his head around, and simply stared at the Canadian.  
  
"Each man faces death by himself... alone," he whispered. "But death cannot come if you can't give it anything."  
  
Raven walked forward, the sound of his boots clumping and clicking on the tile floor.  
  
The Canadian considered the cryptic message for a second or two, his eyes moving towards the right of him. He gazed at the door, and his hand involuntarily, unconsciously, reached forward for the doorknob.  
  
"Chris!" Eddie called. "Yo necessito tu! I need help!"  
  
Jumping back slightly while retracting his hand quick enough, as if he was about to touch the forbidden door that would unlock the most gruesome, horrifying thing sent from Hell below, Benoit shook his head and walked away.  
  
On the other side, a voice was heard.  
  
"... He was so mixed up that he wasn't sure whether to nurse or the rat was real. Maybe neither was real. Maybe both were real. Maybe nothing was real not even himself oh god and wouldn't that be wonderful."
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Well, the doctor cleared us," Dean happily shouted as he entered the room with Eddie's release papers. "We can get out of here first thing tomorrow morning!"  
  
"All right!" Eddie shouted, punching the air as he sat comfortably in his bed, watching TV. He turned his attention to the game of checkers he was playing against Chris. "Hey vato, king me."  
  
Grumbling playfully, Chris kinged Eddie once again. "I still say you're cheating."  
  
"Hey," Eddie said, shaking a finger at his best friend, "it ain't my fault I'm a lucky guy. Luck and me go hand-in-hand baby!"  
  
Shaking his head, Chris moved his red checker on the board.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> Mick shook his head. "No."  
  
Mocha brown eyes glared at him. "You need to get the fuck out of here while you can." His hand clutched around the doorknob. "Don't end up like him."  
  
Dying dark hazel eyes snapped shut, gritting his teeth, clenching his fists, sucking in his breath. "He's _alive_, dammit."  
  
An ironic smirk on handsome features. "Only to you, Mick."  
  
Dwayne opened the door and closed it behind him.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> "Vamos, Chris!" Eddie cheerfully yelled, happily running out of his former prison cell, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. His brown eyes sparkled with life and he felt like laughing. He made it out of the hospital, and he swore he would never put his friend Chris into that position ever again.  
  
Leaving the hospital room, Chris felt a burden being lifted from his shoulders, the extra weight of gravity alleviated, similar to his fears and worries for Eddie's safety. He smiled weakly, however, as he saw a certain room down the hallway. It's door was wide open.  
  
"Tell Dean I'll be down in a second," Chris said to Eddie. "I'm gonna make sure I have everything, okay?"  
  
Eddie nodded, agreeing with his friend. "Okay, Chris. Just make sure not to take too long, or Dean will have a heart-attack."  
  
Chris snorted. "What else is new then?"  
  
Laughing wholeheartedly, Eddie waved to Chris and walked down the stairs.  
  
Chris waved back languidly, yet limply let go of his hand, the arm falling to the side of him as if it was drugged to the point of numbness. He gulped, turning around on his heel until he saw the open door in his sights.  
  
He sighed, taking a step forward and walked down the chilled hallway. Determined and focused, Chris spoke to himself inside his head, reassuring himself that Raven said those words only to scare him to visit the man just one time before he left.  
  
What did Raven know anyways? He was always the melodramatic type. He's always wallowing and speaking with those poetic words, the fool. He smirked. And he called Chris the fool. He wasn't no fool. He was smart, calculated, clever, shrewd, a good man, a good person, a good father, a great friend. He wasn't a fool.  
  
He was right, Raven was wrong. He smiled heartily as he turned around and faced the enterance of the room. It wasn't no different from Eddie's room, similar sheets -- yet were never used, still folded neatly, similar colors -- although they were darker and faded, and similar window -- but he never saw the curtains pulled over the glass since he arrived here.  
  
He shakily walked forward, even though his mind told him to calm down. This was nothing. This man was nothing. Raven was wrong. There was nothing to this. Nothing at all. Nothing nothing nothing. All he had to do was see what he looked like and that was that. Nothing more, nothing less.  
  
Chris Benoit looked at Steve Austin straight in the face.  
  
In that very instant, Raven's words echoed in his head.  
  
_"No matter what you say and do, you just can't ignore it... and you'll never be able to ignore it again."_  
  
He knew. He knew now, he knew everything, every fault, every word, everything... and he even knew why Raven was laughing at nothing.  
  
Chris Benoit left the room after a few seconds and ran down the stairs.  
  
He couldn't find the heart to laugh.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> Smiling brightly as the sun did, Dean clasped Eddie's shoulder and shook it firmly. "Come on," he said, "let's go home."  
  
For the first time in months, Eddie Guerrero grinned happily, his worries gone, his haunting past erased, and his previous condition vanished. He nodded in agreement, raising his own hand to grasp Dean's, clutching it firmly. "Yeah," he whispered in return.  
  
Dean's smile grew, releasing Eddie's shoulder and walking towards the sky blue Camary that would take the group home. Eddie watched him go, turning around to face his long-time companion and loyal friend, Chris. However, the brightness sparkling within his wanton brown eyes dimmed considerably the minute he gazed at the Canadian.  
  
Chris Benoit looked upwards to the hospital, his eyes fixated upon a single window with an indescribable, unidentified person locked inside the room, staring blankly out into the world. His icy blue eyes melted into a deep, lackluster blue, and he shook his head.  
  
Turning his head around, Chris gained a startled look, for a second or two just staring at Eddie. He wasn't expecting anyone to watch him in this moment of weakness. He smiled gratefully, though, walking forward to hug Eddie's shoulders.  
  
Worry, however, evidently encompassed Eddie's eyes, trying to peer into Benoit's inpenatrible blue eyes. "Chris?" he asked. "What were you looking at?"  
  
Chris froze suddenly, his body tensing up. He calmed down instantly, his eyes regaining that lackluster shine. "I'm just so glad you didn't end up like him," he whispered.  
  
Eddie rose an eyebrow, confusion written on his face. "Like who?"  
  
Shaking his head again, Chris pushed Eddie forward, the two walking towards the sky blue car, where a waiting Dean Malenko was, honking and yelling at them to hurry up.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> It's a gorgeous autumn evening, with the sun setting in the horizon, it's golden rays floating over the hilltops and retreating into a peaceful slumber. Multicolored leaves fall from the numerous trees, decorating the ground. Frost clings to the window, glistening in the light. Pinks and purples and golds and oranges fill the sky, no clouds in sight.  
  
There's no one in the parking lot, besides the fallen crumpled leaves. Outside of the window is nothing but a forest, surrounding this isolated hospital, private and unknown to the world. Vince cared a lot about you, and he still does. That's why he put you here. He wants you back. Everyone still does.  
  
Even if they don't visit you, or send you cards, or call up the hospital about you... it doesn't matter, does it? It really doesn't matter at all. Not at all...  
  
It's barren, empty, left alone. We're alone, just the two of us in this room, engulfed in the beauty of the outside.   
  
I should open the window. Maybe the scent of the autumn air will finally wake you up. Do you remember how the autumn smells? Can you even utilize your nose in order to smell that richness of the season? Are you even listening to me?  
  
You should wake up. You need to turn your head to see the season changing. Autumn is falling into winter. You always liked winter. That's what you told me. So turn your head and see outside into the world. Or maybe I need to turn you around again in your little wheelchair.   
  
I gave you some new pillows. I fed you some food. I remembered that you liked chocolate pudding. Anything with chocolate. Chocolate fudge, chocolate sundaes, chocolate bars. See? I remembered. I always remembered you.  
  
So just look outside, and tell me what you think. I love the view. You have such a beautiful, private room. It's so gorgeous and silent and just to yourself. Just you and me. Look out and tell me.  
  
Look. Just look.  
  
See? It's so beautiful. It's so goddamn _beautiful_.   
  
Poetry could be made by this exquisite sight. I could write a sonnet about it, or a little short story, anything at all. The ideas just keep flooding in. What do you think? I know you aren't the most expressive person... but what do you think? Feel? See? Hear?  
  
Why... why can't you do something?  
  
Please, Steve, blink for me. Say something. Do anything.   
  
See the sun? It's glistening off of your face, your lifeless eyes, your chapped lips, your pale skin... it loves you, just like the rest of the world still does. The sun misses you just like your daughters, your ex-wives, even me. Especially me.  
  
You're staring out into nothing. And it's killing me. But that's okay, I mean... you can't hear me. But I think you can. Even you don't show it. You do... but inside, it's like something is holding you back. Something imprisons you, kills you, murders you...  
  
And you stay like that, and you won't let it go. Like a venom that you adore, an addiction, a personal one, and you can't stop. You love it, adore it, worship it, can't live without it. The darkness controls your heart, and you feast upon it like a wild, feral animal.  
  
Yet here I am, holding your cold hand, watching you stare out to the sunset, the reflection melting and echoing into your emotionless blue eyes, once filled with life, dead to the world, dead by your choice.  
  
You're not dead. You're in limbo.  
  
I sit on the opposite chair, watching you, picking up the book that I've been reading to you constantly. I don't know why I chose it. I plucked a book randomly from my library, bringing it to read to you, keep you company. But it's ironically frightening... it matched you, echoed you... and I can't stop reading it.   
  
Maybe, somewhere deep down inside my heart, you'll hear the words, and you'll wake up. You'll wake up and you'll scream for help and I'll be here to catch you. You won't have that darkness anymore, and the light will come and penetrate it, and I'll be here, waiting.  
  
And I'm still waiting.  
  
"He threw back his head and started to yell from fright. But he only started because he had no mouth to yell with. He was so surprised at not yelling when he tried that he began to work his jaws like a man who has found something interesting and wants to test it. He was so sure the idea of no mouth was a dream that he could investigate it calmly. He tried to work his jaws and he had no jaws. He tried to run his tongue around the inside of his teeth and over the roof of his mouth as if he were chasing a raspberry seed. But he didn't have any tongue and he hadn't any teeth. There was no roof to his mouth and there was no mouth. He tried to swallow but he couldn't because he had no palate and there weren't any muscles left to swallow with."  
  
I want those words out of my head, but I still speak them outloud. The words are so true, real and passionate, the truth seeping through like blood coming from slit veins. The doctor hovers over the patient in the story, shaking his head in disgust, his eyes watering in sympathy for the man lying dead on the metal slab. But the corpse breathes.  
  
"He began to smother and pant. It was as if someone had pushed a mattress over his face and was holding it there. He was breathing hard and fast now but he wasn't really breathing because there wasn't any air passing through his nose. He didn't have a nose. He could feel his chest rise and fall and quiver but not a breath of air was passing through the place where his nose used to be."  
  
The soldier is screaming for pain, no arms, no legs, no voice, no sight, nothing but eternal darkness, eternal pain, just like you. So much like you. And no doctor can help him. They leave him to die, but he's so far from it. So far from that eternal bliss, the guiding, loving hand of death. People shouldn't fear death. Death is a wonderful thing, and it comes when the time is right. But they still fear death. Except you. I know that you don't.  
  
"He got a wild panicky eagerness to die to kill himself. He tried to calm his breathing to stop breathing entirely so he would suffocate. He could feel the muscles at the bottom of his throat close tight against the air but the breathing in his chest kept right on. There wasn't any air in his throat to be stopped. His lungs were sucking it in somewhere below his throat."  
  
But the doctors are sure you are going to die. You don't fear death, but the others do. They don't want you to die. They want you to live, come back, join with them in their happiness with you. How you are alive... I just don't know. No one knows how you survived. I don't know why you even allowed yourself to do this to you. Don't you understand how this has affected your family and friends? Affected the world? How guilty each and every person is right now?  
  
How guilty I am?  
  
How could you do this Steve?  
  
How could you do this to yourself? And why?  
  
Because of the fans? How they hated you, loathed you, wanted you to die? So you complied? You fulfilled their wishes?  
  
"He knew now that he was surely dying but he was curious. He didn't want to die until he had found out everything. If a man has no nose and no mouth and no palate and no tongue why it stands to reason he might be shy a few other parts as well. But that was nonesense because a man in that shape would be dead. You couldn't lose that much of yourself and still keep on living. Yet if you knew you had lost them and were thinking about it why then you must be alive because dead men don't think. Dead men aren't curious and he was sick with curiosity so he must not be dead yet."  
  
This is insane, Steve. You were stronger than this. Stronger than what you thought you were. You coulda stayed alive, coulda been alive and had your family. Who cared what the world thought about you! Who cares but you, and those around you. I never judged you, Steve. Dwayne never judged you. Fuck, Steve, Brian was alive, you know that he never judged you for anything, just like you never did with him! Now look at where you are, Steve.  
  
In the state you're in, you'll probably never get that chance.   
  
You'll probably never see Brian again.  
  
Or... or when I die, or when your family dies, or when your daughters have passed on and lived their life...   
  
Where will you be?   
  
Will you be there, up in Heaven, with us? Where Brian is? Will you be in Hell? Will you be in Purgatory?  
  
Or will you... will you stay... where... yo--  
  
Oh God, Steve.  
  
... G-God.  
  
_Where are you?_  
  
"He began to reach out with the nerves of his face. He began to strain to feel the nothingness that was there. Where his mouth and nose had been there must now be nothing but a hole covered with bandages. He was trying to find out how far up that hole went. He was trying to feel the edges of the hole. He was grasping with the nerves and pores of his face to follow the borders of that hole and see how far up they extended."  
  
When will you speak? Will you move your head, just like the soldier did, using Morse Code with the bounces upon the bed, screaming out for help? SOS? Wanting to die? Will I be the nurse that kills you, a mercy killing? An assisted suicide?  
  
Why, Steve?  
  
How could you do this?  
  
Are you screaming for help inside that mangled body of yours? Can you see me? Are you grateful that I'm here, that I'm reading to you, that I'm talking to you, catering to you, crying and whispering and wishing that you were back? Are you sorry that you did this to yourself, to the others?  
  
God, where are you, Steve?   
  
Where the fuck are you?  
  
"It was like staring into complete darkness with your eyes popping out of your head. It was a process of feeling with his skin of exploring with something that couldn't move where his mind told it to. The nerves and muscles of his face were crawling like snakes toward his forehead."  
  
Don't you understand how influential you were? Why did you do this? Why didn't you just ignore them like you always did? When did it finally go to your head? Can you hear me?! I'm here, Steve. Oh God, can't you... can you... Why... why did... wh--  
  
"The hole began at the base of his throat just below where his jaw should be and went upward in a widening circle. He could feel his skin creeping around the rim of the circle. The hole was getting bigger and bigger. It widened out almost to the base of his ears if he had any and then narrowed again. It ended somewhere above the top of what used to be his nose."  
  
You were so stupid. How could you ever do this to yourself? You didn't have to be so stupid... so idiotic. You didn't have to be that solider, a moronic simpleton deciding to fight for his country rather than caring for himself. Look at where he is now, Steve. He's not himself anymore. He's a fucking basket-case... the ultimate kind.  
  
"The hole went too high to have any eyes in it."  
  
Good God, Steve.  
  
"He was blind."  
  
_**Why?**_  
  
Why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you TELL me? I was here, I was open, I was your goddamn friend. Wasn't I, Steve? I was with you since the beginning, one of your close friends, and I still am. That's why I'm here, dammit. That's why said I was gonna stay, with you, until you wake up.  
  
"It was funny how calm he was. He was quiet just like a storekeeper taking spring inventory and saying to himself I see I have no eyes better put that down in the order book. He had no legs and no arms and no eyes and no ears and no nose and no mouth and no tongue What a hell of a dream. It must be a dream. Of course sweet god it's a dream. He'd have to wake up or he'd go nuts. Nobody could live like that. A person in that condition would be dead and he wasn't dead so he wasn't in that condition. Just dreaming."  
  
Why didn't you Steve?! Why?! I was... I am... I...  
  
"But it wasn't a dream."  
  
_**WHY THE HELL DID YOU HAVE TO BE SO GODDAMN FUCKING STUBBORN!?**_  
  
Why couldn't you tell me what was going on?! What was going wrong?! What was happening in your life?! Why you were doing the things you did?! Why?! I was here, I could handle it, I could take it!   
  
The book falls to the ground. I could pick it up, but I can't. It would burn in my hands. The truth of that book... how it parallels to you... it's too much. Just... too much.  
  
You didn't have to do this.  
  
You didn't have to do this, Steve.  
  
You didn't have to try and kill yourself.  
  
I don't know why you did that. You tried, and you tried your best. You wanted to die, and you tried, and you failed. And now look at where you are.  
  
Look Steve... I waited here. I stayed here. I cared for you, catered to you... I was here this entire goddamn time. I promised to you, even if you didn't listen to me at all, that I was gonna stay here with you until you woke up. I had enough patience and mentality to stay with you. After all, the crazy ones have to be with their own kind.  
  
But you're more than crazy now. You aren't crazy at all. You're not me, you're not Dwayne, you're not Benoit or Dean or even Eddie.  
  
You're... you're...  
  
Nothing.  
  
That's what you are.  
  
Absolutely nothing at all.  
  
Where are you in that shell I see in front of me? Where's the man that I spent time on the road with? Where's the guy that I joked around with? Where's Stone Cold Steve Austin, the caring, sweet, gentle, tough, dirty, strongest son of a bitch the world has ever seen?  
  
You're gone. You're not here anymore. All I see now is a dead man, a man living in a dream, or a nightmare, either.  
  
And that's why I'm leaving, Steve.  
  
Why should I stay and pray to God, asking him to bring you back, when you've been gone this entire time? Why should I cater to you, read to you, ask and plead to you to wake up and come back when you're not here anymore? Why should I be here when you are nothing but a shell of a friend?  
  
Why should I stay for a friend whose already dead?  
  
Hope and faith aren't the most reliable things in the world, that's what Dean said to Chris, that's what I overheard while I was sitting here with you, wasting away my life with you when you didn't have anymore life to waste in you. But that's what I did. I had hope. I had faith. Where did that get me? Nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.  
  
I would love to come into your head, and get you out of there, try and salvage what is left of you. But I know that there isn't anything left to save.   
  
You're gone, you're dead, and you're never coming back.  
  
I admit it.   
  
I should have admitted it a long time ago, right Steve? But you couldn't tell me, could you? Too dead to open your mouth and tell me to go.  
  
So I'm making the decision. I've already packed my bags. Dwayne's waiting downstairs for me in his car. We're gonna go off, he's gonna go back into acting, and I'm gonna go back into writing and stay with my family and maybe even return to wrestling again.  
  
I have that option, Steve. You don't.  
  
All you had to do Steve was to wake up. And you couldn't even do that. You couldn't wake up and tell me to go, that it was a waste of my fucking time staying here, being here, doing nothing at all, doing all of this shit for a goddamn shell of a man.  
  
The others told me to give up, but I didn't. I blindly believed that you were gonna make it. And now look at where I am -- three years of my damn life down the fucking hell hole. All for you.   
  
For YOU.  
  
And do you know why? Because I was your friend -- your best friend. Out of them all -- Dwayne, Raven, J.Rand even Vince himself -- I was the one that was by your side the entire time. Me. No one else. Plain ol' crazy Mick. He was here for you.  
  
Not your mother, father, sister, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, ex-wives, daughters, friends, fans... no one came. No one knew you existed. No one cared.   
  
They ignored you.   
  
They ignored you and do you know why?  
  
You weren't fucking worth it.  
  
They didn't care about you and what happened. They didn't care because you made that decision to get the gun and shoot yourself. They didn't care that you did it because you thought you were a burden to the world, thought that they didn't love you, thought that you weren't worth it.  
  
Trying to get pity, Steve? You aren't Raven.  
  
Funny thing is that you did get pity out of Raven anyhow.  
  
But the world didn't care. Why? They felt the guilt. They knew it was their fault -- THEIR fault for putting you in here. Told you things that drove you insane, hated your living guts, elated when they found out you shot yourself, beyond ecstatic even.   
  
Yet every human being feels guilt, sorrow, pity. They just won't give it to you.  
  
The world -- the whole fucking world -- turned their backs on you.   
  
Some loyalty, huh?  
  
Everyone except me, Steve. Except me.  
  
I should've joined the world, right Steve?  
  
Don't even bothering answering. I know you can't.  
  
Dwayne was your friend too, but even he told me to give up. He told me in the face to get out of here before my life was gone and I would end up like you.  
  
But I won't end up like you, because I'm taking his advice, and I'm going and I'm never gonna come back. You're dead, Steve. You're dead, but I'm not. I've got that chance, I've got a future.   
  
You're a dead man, Steve. You should be buried and gone and never to return. You shouldn't be sitting in a wheelchair, like a fucking statue, looking out into the world, as if you were trying to find a way to return back.  
  
You can't return back. Especially with the way you look now.  
  
Dwayne was right. Eddie could make it.   
  
He can still show his face to the world.  
  
You don't.  
  
In a matter of both connotations.  
  
So here I go, Steve. Wanna try and stop me? Wanna finally try and wake up and beg me not to go, scream at me that I was your only friend and you knew this from the beginning and you want me to stay and be with you for the rest of your life while the rest of the world hates you, loathes you, and forgets you?  
  
Too late, Steve.  
  
I'm already one of those people.  
  
So... so long, farwell, goodbye, adieu to you.  
  
I can't call you Steve anymore. Because the Steve I knew would have already made it out of here, and would already be at home with his daughters, his family, and his friends. He would be walking out with me, joking with me, talking with me, entering the car like I will with Dwayne, and we'd ride in the car together until we reach the airport. And even then we'd still be talking until we had to go our separate ways.  
  
You're _not_ Steve.  
  
You're _nothing_ but a **hollow** man.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> ...  
  
It's all...  
  
He can'--  
  
Wha-- why is t--  
  
Gone.  
  
Nothing.  
  
...   
  
Silence. A retreating light. A slowly numbing darkness.  
  
Darkness darkness darkness. It was a word he grew accustomed to. A word he knew and understood quite clearly. He didn't have a voice, though, to show his findings to the world.  
  
It's amazing what one little mistake can do. One little mistake could show him the past, the present and the future, show him the flaws of himself, the errors of humanity, and the ways to the right path, the correct path. But it was ironic, it was poetic. He knew, and he couldn't tell anyone but himself.  
  
And even he himself was starting to get tired of hearing the same damn things over and over again. He wanted to rid himself of his ludacris, fantastic ideas and thoughts, but he couldn't. He only had himself, himself and no one else, so he had to cope with his frantic mind. He had no other choice.  
  
His vanished nose couldn't smell a damn thing. He couldn't tell if there were flowers besides him, or if he was really in a hospital room, or if it really was autumn turning into winter as Mick told him. He couldn't tell, he didn't know... he hated it. Without his nose, he couldn't tell what was real. He couldn't rely on it anymore.  
  
It was a little sub of flesh sticking out into the world, not small enough to be considered a flab of skin but not big enough to be called a deformed appendage. The sunken chin, where the bullet ran through like hot, molten silver, affected him when he ate. He couldn't chew correctly anymore. He couldn't speak anymore. Jumbled, slurred, stuttered words would through his lips, and he wouldn't be able to control it.  
  
Or maybe he could still speak. Maybe he would just have a little deformity, something that could be hidden or live with him for the rest of his life, a constant reminder of the mistake he made so many years ago. He never attempted it, though. He had so much hope and faith that he could at least speak correctly still that he couldn't go through with it. What if he did sound like a retard? What if he did sound stupid and immoral and wrong? What if he was mocked and ridiculed and belittled more than ever by others with his current state?  
  
No.  
  
He couldn't live like that.  
  
He couldn't bear it.  
  
Jesus, how could _anyone_ live like that? He couldn't, not with what he once was. Why live as a man with no usage of arms, legs, speech, hearing, sight, and even your own mind when so many years ago you used to be like that? It was insane, a dream, nothingness, a nightmare, a fucking nightmare, untrue, unreal, false, nothing, nothing, nothing.  
  
He was once whole. He couldn't face the world as he was now.   
  
The lower lip curled outward on the side, a willowy limp flap of skin scratching against the air, the area where his chin used to be. He felt numb all over. He couldn't feel, see, taste, hear, smell... it drove him insane. He drowned silently, hopelessly, without any hand to take him out of the water and give him a comforting hug and a whisper of assurance. There was no one around to help him. No one at all.  
  
The bullet went to his head, and he couldn't control his mind anymore. Out of control, wild, and untamable, he lost the reigns to his mind. He couldn't do anything about it. He was unable to do anything. Couldn't do anything. Hearing, seeing, thinking, smelling, moving and now he was losing his sight. That's all he had left. He fought the darkness, the impending crawling chaotic abyss that threatening to take the last shred of his humanity away. He couldn't let it be taken away from him. He refused to.  
  
But what could he do? He was nothing. Just like Mick said. Nothing at all. Nothing... nothing nothing nothing. A pile of nothing. A living nothing. Only nothing. And what can nothing do? Simple nothing at all. Nothing... nothing...  
  
So he sat there, and watched the world around him.  
  
Stoically, catatonic... dead, almost. But not quite.  
  
Death would have been merciful.  
  
He forgot the days and the months and the years but never the seasons. His blurred vision, the tears unshed, confined and imprisoned like his body and the darkness deep down inside the bowels of his soul and mind, overlapping his sight slightly, but he could see clearly like a crystal morning.   
  
The seasons melted into the shards of his mind, whatever left that he could gather and form coherent statements, and he smiled, gratefully, even though he couldn't smile a decent enough emotion anymore. He hummed a tune, although his mouth couldn't open big enough to echo it throughout the room. He breathed in the fresh night air, even if he couldn't tell if it was truly night or truly air.  
  
That was the thing. He couldn't tell what was dream and what was real anymore. He couldn't tell whether he was awake or he was asleep. He couldn't tell the truth from the false. What was real? What was dream? How did he fit into either? Did he fit into neither? And if so... where was he? Where would he be?  
  
Jesus Christ.  
  
He couldn't fit into reality, he would be laughed and mocked and ridiculed at. He couldn't fit into dream, he would receive only darkness, nightmares, and treachery. He was tired of both.  
  
Death was a way out. He loved death, wanted it, breathed for simply that all-ending taste. But death was merciful. And he wouldn't receive death.  
  
He wanted to cry. He wanted to die. He didn't want to look outside the window and see the world that he could never rejoin, but he couldn't tell Mick that. He couldn't tell Mick anything at all. Catatonic, the doctors said. In limbo, Mick said. Pathetic, the fans said. Idiotic, useless, worthless...  
  
He was human. The words hurt him. Hurt him more than the way his eyes stung but couldn't spill a drop of fluid, how his arms ached to be moved but couldn't find the strength nor the will to move them, how his legs begged to be freed from its prison but he couldn't walk even if he tried, how his lungs desired to be free and open in the fresh air, but he didn't know whether to trust this world he was in or the other one, the one filled of darkness and deathly dreams.   
  
He was confused, and he hated it. He had no other choice.  
  
The sun set over in the horizon, autumn changed into winter, and the final leaves fluttered to the ground of the hospital's parking lot. The stars formed in the black abyss above, twinkling dimly, a sullen shine. Twilight overcame his world, but it was more alive, more perfect... so much more than the darkness in his mind.  
  
And he didn't want that darkness anymore. He wanted to breathe, to live, to see his family, his friends, his daughters grow, his friends giving him hugs and reassuring words, he wanted to be loved and to have his life and to have it all back and he would do it all over again if he had to. He wanted it back dear God he wanted it ba--  
  
Steve sat in the wheelchair, and blinked.  
  
He _blinked_.  
  
For a second, he felt something entering his lungs, and he felt a desire to stand up. He felt his mouth opening wide, and his felt his eyes blinking and blinking again, tears screaming sorrow down his cold, blanched face, his hands forming fists, his body ready to move forward, gaining a push, a thrill, a desire.   
  
He was ready to live again. He felt his heart pumping, his knuckles cracking, his mind yelling at him to move and to move now. He had names to take, asses to kick, and a crowd to entertain. He was loved, he was alive... he was...  
  
Steve Austin, for a simple second, was Steve Austin.   
  
But for only a second.  
  
A small smile rose on his deformed lips, as he felt his world close around him -- a usual moment in his life -- while a single thought ran into his head, just like the bullet did years ago.  
  
He was a hollow one, alone now and left with a life in hell.  
  
And as the moon rose in the horizon, it illuminated everything in its path, the trees, the grass, the stars, bathing it in a welcoming embrace, holding the world and its children close and giving them comfort and peace and tranquillity and hope and love.  
  
The moon didn't shine in Steve's empty eyes.
>>> 
>>> * * *
>>> 
>>> _Thousands upon thousands of voices, screaming, yelling, shrieking, bellowing, weeping, all of them running towards some light -- no, a helicopter, sweeping down like an angel of death, giving them a helping hand, a chance to go towards salvation.  
  
Come with me, kid, they say, and you'll go home and see you're wife and kids and mom and dad again, okay? You get to go home and you won't be here on this battlefield anymore. No more, no more, you got that sonny-boy? So hurry up and get in the damn choper.  
  
And they scramble like frightened antelope, running and trampling over others that just can't run that fast cause they lost a leg or an arm or they can't see cause they lost their face, and pile on top of one another into that blissful machine, and fly high into the sky, and blaze off like a bat out of hell into the sunset.  
  
But one stayed behind. One watched as the helicopter left him all alone with the blood and the dead and the bombs, and he screamed at them, running after it, arms opened wide.  
  
A granade goes off.   
  
A guitar plays, all alone, in a warehouse somewhere.  
  
Doctors, millions of doctors, nurses, special personel, rushing down a hallway, pushing on a stretcher a broken, battered body.  
  
"The cerebrum has suffered massive and irreparable damage."  
  
The doctor shook his head sadly, his white mask moving gently. "He'll never know what has happened to him."  
  
His body -- ripped apart, broken, shattered, used as their own plaything. Well, boys, let's get to work, let's fix that son of a bitch up. Come on, let's go.  
  
The doctors bring out their weapons of mass destruction. "If I had not been sure of this, I would not have permitted him to live."  
  
He cries for help, lost in the darkness.  
  
"Where am I? Father? What... happened? I need help!"  
  
Memories flood like a river, drowning, drowning softly, gently, in himself.  
  
"What is democracy?"  
  
"Its got something to do with young men killing each other, I believe."  
  
"When it's my turn... would you want me to go?"  
  
Grave paternal eyes stab into the soul of his only son.  
  
"For democracy, any man would give his only begotten son."  
  
The drums echo and the guitar weeps.  
  
He remembers, walking, he remembers legs, remembers the train station, Kareen, Kareen Kareen beautiful lovely Kareen, his love, his girlfriend, his future wife. Hold me, Kareen, hold me, and I'll hold you back with my beautiful arms.  
  
She rose her arm and waved to him goodbye, watching him go, never wanting to release him from her sights.   
  
Duck, hide, be a coward, who cares. Live. Live, dammit. That's all that matters. Get away from that war. Get away, hide away, get to the choper.   
  
The landmine went off. Darkness.  
  
He lies in his bed -- awake, asleep, living, festering, breathing, suffocating -- and he hears the doctors. He hears their vibrations.   
  
"It is impossible for a decerebrated individual to experience pain, pleasure, memories, dreams, or thoughts. Because... He will be as unfeeling and unthinking as the day he joins them."  
  
He wants to scream -- no jaw. He wants to see -- no eyes. He wants to live -- no body. No way, kid, you're stuck like that, and stuck like that forever.  
  
The guitar moves.  
  
"I don't know if I am alive or dreaming or dead and remembering. How can you tell what's dream and what's real if you can't even tell whether you're awake and you're asleep? ... where am I?"  
  
The final chime to the drums, and a voice rasps the truth.  
  

>>> 
>>> I can't remember anything.  
Can't tell if this is true or dream.  
Deep down inside, I feel to scream.  
This terrible silence stops me.  
Now that the war is through with me,  
I'm waking up, I cannot see  
That there's not much left of me.  
Nothing is real but pain now.  
  
Hold my breath as I wish for death,  
Oh please, God, wake me.
>>> 
>>>   
  
His eyes went wide -- he has no eyes. "They just went ahead and chopped off everything... Oh God! Please make them hear me!"  
  
It dawns on him. Does he still have a mind?  
  
The nurse stands next to him, places the tubes in him nonchalantly, uncaring, unthinking.  
  
"They won't listen. They won't hear me. NowakemeupIdon'twannabelikethiscan'tyouhearmepleaseohGod HEAR ME."  
  
The air pump clocks back and forth. The voice breathes again.  
  

>>> 
>>> Back in the womb, it's much too real.  
It pumps life that I must feel.  
But can't look forward to reveal,  
Look to the time when I lived.  
Fed through the tube that sticks in me,  
Just like a wartime novelty.  
Tied to machines that make me be  
Cut this life out from me.  
  
Hold my breath as I wish for death  
Oh please God, wake me.
>>> 
>>>   
  
He drowns silently in the little dark room, all alone.  
  
He wants to laugh -- no mouth. No voice. No jaw. No teeth. No tongue.  
  
"I'm just like a piece of meat that... keeps on living."  
  
The guitar moves, fingers making love it it, but its crying gently for the soldier, feeling it pain, unable to do nothing, nothing at all.  
  
The guitar cries, and the fingers rape it.  
  
"It won't always be like this, will it?"  
  
His head moves back and forth in denail, desperation... despair. "I can't live like this! I... I can't!"  
  
He tries to whimper and scream -- his voice gargles and spurts and groans. "Please no I can't I can't help me! Somebody help me!"  
  
He tries to suffocate himself. His stomach moves.  
  
The nurse comes, tweezers in her hand. She's pulling, pulling at his mind, his face, pulling pieces of it away--  
  
Pain. Too much pain.  
  
Oh god the pain the agony the darkness GET ME OUT PLEASE OH GOD HELP ME SOMEONE ANYONE SOMEONE HEAR ME HELP ME WATCH ME FEEL ME OH GOD SOMEONE ANYONE--  
  
"M-Mother?! Where are you?!"  
  
The piece pulls out. So much pain.  
  
"Help me mother I'm having a nightmare and I can't **WAKE UP!**"  
  

>>> 
>>> Now the world is gone,  
I'm just one,  
Oh God, help me!  
Hold my breath as I wish for death  
Oh please God, help me!
>>> 
>>>   
  
Guitars moved as one, drums a pounding force, focusing to sing their song, play it out into the world. Fingers move, arms swayed, wild tresses of hair glided and danced.  
  
His head jerked violently, as if he tried to scream, but nothing came, and it never would. He wanted to laugh, but he knew the truth, so he heard his own voice in his head -- his only companion.  
  
He muses to himself, and is his own private clown, entertained by his own situation.   
  
"Me lying here... like some kind of freak in a carnival show."  
  
He laughs, bellows, wickedly screams in hilarity and lunacy, the pictures of his father walking around like a ringmaster, pulling his circus to the masses, watching as they lurked and peered around him, wanting to see the freak of nature for their own personal happiness.  
  
He could see his father with a top hat, beaming, shouting, waving his arms towards the creature, the monster, the unnamed beast.  
  
"He is the armless, legless, wonder of the twentieth century!"  
  
Guitars change their pace, gently playing faster, harder, swifter. Fingers rip on the fingerboard. Hands clutch a pair of sticks, pounding them savagely.  
  
Feet slowly hit the pedals, producing a soft, undertone of a pounding affect, hidden underneath the guitars, waiting patiently to strike, to kill, to murder.  
  
The soldier remembered, he remembered how the sergeant, the wise and stoic sergeant and his naive little deputy watching scared, frightened, petrified.   
  
He looked at his superior, but the sergeant stayed cold. "Death has a dignity all its own."  
  
The guitars acted faster... harder.  
  
The bomb, he could see it, clear as day, if he could remember what the day was lik-- now, it was there, he could see it. He could SEE it.  
  
The major chord hit, and it was beautifully held out.  
  
Get away, hide, stay away, duck for cover!! It's coming!   
  
The drums thrived and pounded. And pounded. And POUNDED.  
  
Kareen? Mother? Father? A-are... are you there? Please dear God I don't want to die I don't want anything to happen to me I just want to be there and see you all of you each and everyone of you aga--  
  
It hit.  
  
The unnerving, heart-shattering twist into a sadistic, blood-thirsty riff.  
  
"F-father?!"  
  
The eyes of home.  
  
"I need help!"  
  
The guitars thrashed, wild hair streaming all around.  
  
"I'm in terrible trouble and I NEED HELP!"  
  
He could remember. His father, in the woods, watching the stars, how he loved those stars.  
  
"Don't you remember when you were little? How you and Bill Hartford used to string a wire to the house and talk to each other?"  
  
His heart stopped -- the only thing he could stop.  
  
"Do you remember the Morse Code?"  
  
And just like he did years ago, he nodded his head.  
  
But he kept on nodding. And nodding. And nodding.  
  
He nodded until he could find the strength in muscles of his back, and his neck, and he slammed it against the pillow. And he did it again. And again, grunting in his efforts like a wild boar.  
  
He did it again. And again. And he found a passageway. He found that soothing light at the end of the pathway again. He found salvation again.  
  
He found a way to speak.  
  
The nurse could only look on... perplexed... and with pity.  
  
And the voice SCREAMED.  
  

>>> 
>>> **DARKNESS  
IMPRISONING ME  
ALL THAT I SEE   
ABSOLUTE HORROR  
I CANNOT LIVE  
I CANNOT DIE  
TRAPPED IN MYSELF  
BODY MY HOLDING CELL**
>>> 
>>>   
  
The soldiers gathered around him, like children around a dead, bloodied animal.  
  
"It's Morse Code."  
  
The leutienant rose his head, shock clearly on his face. "For what?"  
  
The other kept his grim look. "S.O.S... **help.**"  
  

>>> 
>>> **LANDMINE  
HAS TAKEN MY SIGHT  
TAKEN MY SPEECH  
TAKEN MY HEARING  
TAKEN MY ARMS  
TAKEN MY LEGS  
TAKEN MY SOUL  
LEFT ME WITH A LIFE IN HELL!!**
>>> 
>>>   
  
They look at him, unknowing what to do, or how to deal with it.  
  
"What's he saying?"  
  
The soldier gulps. Hard. "He says... k-kill me." He lifts his eyes. "Over and over again. Kill me."  
  
The drums drive harder. The guitars bleed.  
  
"Oh God, please make them hear me--"  
  
The nurse folds her hands over her face.  
  
The head doctor sneers to a wealthy, smug superior. "Don't you have some message for him?!"  
  
He smirks. "He's a product of your profession... not mine."  
  
The guitars strangle and scream, the drums march on, their faces grim, focused, intense, determined to scream their message to deaf ears, to silent mouths, to faceless beings.  
  
To people, like the soldier now.  
  
Fingers ripped up and down, shreading everything on that fingerboard, raping and murdering the guitar over and over again, endlessly, the sounds it made screeching and shrieking and yelling over everything, it's melodious, addictive melody sucking the life out of the warehouse, and the people inside it.  
  
They keep on moving, though, faster and harder and pounding and sweating and screaming and yelling and wishing and hoping and desiring and playing, simply playing their souls out until there was nothing left of them, nothing but that seething pain.  
  
Like that soldier. Always like that soldier.  
  
"Kill me."  
  
The soldier's head moves back and forth, wishing and breathing harshly.  
  
The nurses' hand falls on his quivering chest.  
  
His head turns to her.  
  
"I'm asking for you to kill me."  
  
Her hand hovers over the tube, connecting to his neck.  
  
A hand with a pair of sharp, silver scissors.  
  
He wishes he could smile.  
  
"Thank you."  
  
The guitars thrash back and forth, to and fro, yelling and making sweet raping noises that no one can hear, and no one will ever hear, a message meant for the dead, and the dead can't talk after all.  
  
Sweat falls down their numb, blanched faces, gritted, sore teeth, bulging, tired muscles. They moved, they breathed, they sang, and they sang with a cry for the salvation of humanity.  
  
No one heard them, but the played on.  
  
The soldier slowly breathed, as he waited for that snap, a snap he couldn't hear, but he could feel -- a snap he oh Lord WANTED to feel.  
  
A hand snatched the scissors away. The nurse thrown out of the room. He felt her being lead away -- no, dragged away, and a cold, harsh hand tapped him against the head a single sentence.  
  
WHAT  
  
YOU  
  
ASK  
  
IS  
  
AGAINST  
  
REGULATIONS  
  
WHO  
  
ARE  
  
YOU?  
  
He **screamed**.   
  
He screamed on the inside, screaming to God, to Jesus, to the Apostles and all the saints and angels and souls and spirits and his mother and father and sisters and brothers and Kareen and his friends and everyone.  
  
He stayed still, ever patiently quiet, on the outside.  
  
"Help... me... please..."  
  
The door slammed. He felt the vibrations. He calmed.  
  
"... F-father?!"  
  
The voice of his father entered his mind.  
  
"Each man faces death by himself... alone."  
  
He wanted to smirk. Ironically, bittersweetly smirk. He couldn't.  
  
"Goodbye father."  
  
Darkness gathered around him, suffocating him, but he couldn't be suffocated. Death lurked around him like a hungry, blood-thirsty panther, its golden eyes piercing through the twilight, but it would never feast upon his lovely, ripe dead carcass.   
  
He moved his head back and forth on the bed, slowly, defeated.  
  
And in that instant, he knew the truth.  
  
Dead men can never live again, because once they are dead, they know too much. And since the dead don't speak, they should never be able to. Be silent, you see, for you should be, so says the world that you once lived in, now cope.  
  
"Inside me I'm screaming"  
  
The shadows ripped apart, and a body laid, silent, ignored, alone.  
  
"nobody pays any attention"  
  
Limp hands laid on his side.  
  
"if I had arms I could kill myself"  
  
Motionless stiff legs never cracked.  
  
"if I had legs I could run away"  
  
Disformity lingered on his face.  
  
"if I had a voice I could talk and be some kind of company for myself"  
  
Blue eyes stared above.  
  
"how will they know when to kill me?!"  
  
Blue eyes trembled with hidden unshed tears.  
  
"I could yield for help, but nobody'd help me."  
  
Steve Austin laid on the bed, in the dark, secret room, away from the world.  
  
"I just got to do something..."  
  
Unable to move, breathe, blink, dream, live, die... exist. Only exist.  
  
"I just don't see how I can... go on like this."  
  
The guitars slammed their final riffs.  
  
"S.O.S..."  
  
The drums crashed and pounded for the last time.  
  
"Help... me..."  
  
The abyss crawled around him, and he felt no more.  
  
"S..... O..... S....."  
  
Steve lied in that bed, and the darkness took over him, for good.  
  
"... h.e.l.p......... m.e......"  
  
The drums and the guitars finished their song.  
  
The members released their instruments, and watched them fall to the ground.  
  
And once they touched the cold steel floor, no sound echoed.  
  
None at all.  
  
And in the distance, a family, waiting for their beloved soldier, sang a hymn.  
  

>>> 
>>> "Keep the home fires burning, while your hearts are yearning. Though your lads are far away..."
>>> 
>>> _   
  

>>> 
>>> "One" - Metallica.
>>> 
>>>   
  
... But exactly what will he, the dead-while-living, do now?   
  
We don't know.   
  
We don't ask.   
  
We turn away from him.  
  
We avert the eyes, ears, nose, mouth, face.   
  
"Why should I look, it wasn't my fault, was it?"   
  
It was, of course, like usual, but no matter.   
  
Time presses.   
  
Death waits even for us.   
  
We all have a dream to pursue, each and every one of us, the whitest white hope of them all, a hope that we can all have faith in heedlessly, and we must follow and find it before the light fails.  
  
So long, you loser. God bless. Take care. We'll be seeing you.


End file.
